


Total Paranoia

by Laerkstrein



Series: ScAvengers Of The Damned [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Asgard, Barton Won't Stop Bitching, Brotherhood, Depression, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, I'm an insane genius, Loki Does What He Wants, Loki Has Issues, Loki Lies, Midgard, Oh My God, Other, Paranoia, Parent Tony Stark, Pepper Is A Mommy, Post-Avengers Asgard, Post-Avengers Midgard, Protective Thor, Relationship Issues, Revenge, Rivalry, Sibling Rivalry, Suspense, Tesseract, Trust Issues, loki's a little shit, shit just got real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 89,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laerkstrein/pseuds/Laerkstrein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years have passed since the failure of the Jotunn assault, and most of the Avengers are content. But in the days following Thor and Jane's return to Manhattan, the god of thunder comes across a frightening sight and revelation. No one thought his brother would come back to Earth a third time. </p><p>Direct sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/819917/chapters/1553026">Like Pulling Teeth</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burning Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://niger-ut-niveus.livejournal.com/?skip=30&tag=%23multi%3A%20total%20paranoia) on my LJ comm on 01.29.13, and is still in progress.
> 
> The title for this piece came from the song "Total Paranoia" by Serj Tankian. 
> 
> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Let The Flames Begin" by Paramore.

Three years he had wandered, always moving, consistently peering over his shoulder in fear that, when breaking glass or a snapping twig sounded, one of them would appear, screeching loudly as they came to drag him away to the dark, unexplored expanses of space. It hadn't mattered where he had gone, be it the realm of the Elves or even the many cities upon Midgard, their shadows had constantly followed at his heels.   
  
It had grown tiring, waking in the dead of night, hearing their screeching in his ears, wondering when and where the next nightmare would take place.   
  
There was a strange comfort in the bizarre weather of the city, so long as it wasn't scorching like Muspelheim. He'd tried to stay there for a time; had only made it through about six days before the heat had all but drained him. Though it was Midgard, a realm he'd sooner forget now, there was a bit of peace in wandering the streets again and being paid no mind. He didn't like being a spectacle, though Loki had done little to prevent that in the last couple of times he'd been about. Leading an army of power-crazed aliens through the streets to drag down the planet's people, and again returning to crush them beneath the frost of the Jotunns. For a man who hated being the center of attention, Loki had all but put himself on a damned stage with a spotlight.   
  
The rain was horrendous, comparable to even the legendary storms of Asgard. There were stories, and Loki was certain that they were true, that when the realm of the Aesir was ravaged by foul weather, the excess would fall through the cosmos and onto parts of Midgard. Perhaps that was what was going on now.   
  
Newspapers fluttered about, having been ripped out of people's hands as they hurried after umbrellas and hats and scarves that were tossed about in the wind. The fluid dropped down on the windows, streaking across the glass and falling to the ground, leaving large puddles and causing cabs to drive through and soak people on their way past.   
  
In a city as large as Manhattan, there weren't too many solitary places to sit and think, so he'd perched himself atop one of the buildings, content in watching the people wander about on the ground like tiny specks. Like ants. Ants that he should have been able to crush.   
  
But they didn't matter now. Not Midgard, not Asgard, not his brother or his little friends. They were all terribly obsolete.   
  
Three years, and, no matter where he'd stood, the Chitauri had been there, clawing their way through the barrier built at the back of his mind. And as the storm raged, and the lightning scratched its way across the sky, Loki tugged the collar coat tighter, thought that this couldn't be anything but an ill omen.   
  
They would come for him, and they would find him. And, Thanos, one way or another, would destroy him.  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
They'd gone back and forth between the desert and the city for quite some time. More often as of late, though Thor couldn't say that he was particularly adverse to the journey. He didn't like leaving Darcy and Erik behind all the time, so Thor was nothing short of thrilled that they'd come along this time, but it was always a welcome sight to see his friends, to see the Avengers, waiting for them at the airport. It had been some months since the last time they had all come together like this, and, though they were very much the same, some things had clearly changed.   
  
Pepper had the light gleam of tears in her eyes as she embraced him and Jane, and Tony, still dressed to the nines and wearing those ridiculous dark sunglasses though they were indoors, held a tiny little blanket far closer to the shoulder of his suit jacket than he probably wanted to. The man made a face as Thor looked his way and gave him a stern look. The god only smiled, biting back the laugh that was sure to roll off his tongue at any moment. It seemed that Pepper had gotten her wish after all, and she beamed, taking the baby from Tony's arms and turning him to face Thor.   
  
The thunderer stared into the tiny face, big blue eyes looking back at him as the little, toothless mouth opened. Thor lifted a hand, poked the baby's small fingers and flinched, almost afraid that he'd break the child into little pieces. But the baby, whose name Pepper had proudly told Jane was Bradley, only smiled and cooed, slapped Thor's arm with a squeal as he wriggled in his mother's arms.   
  
Four months, Pepper had said, and her son already had a better attitude than his father.  
  
"He vomits," Tony said simply, utterly killing the sweet sincerity of the moment. He made a face as though he'd swallowed something sour. "All the damn time."  
  
Pepper nudged him, forced the baby back into his arms with a smile. "And that," she said, "is why I have you on cleanup duty."  
  
"Uh, I'm sorry, but Daddy has a business to run. Not to mention people to save."  
  
Thor smiled, hid the expression behind a hand as Pepper turned and began pushing the man towards the luggage belt. "Yes, but there haven't been many people to save, Tony." She smiled at the baby who peered at her over Tony's shoulder. "And that's why Daddy does what Mommy says. Isn't that right?"  
  
Bradley smiled and cooed.   
  
The god looked back at Jane who walked side by side with Bruce and Erik, discussing in depth the various theories that he couldn't understand without a very simplified explanation. It made him happy to know that she had been easily accepted by the group, that Jane had become a part of their team in an instant, had found friends who cared for her the way they did for him. His blue eyes turned to the sound of a laugh and couldn't help staring at Darcy as she plastered herself to Steve's arm, began peppering him with questions about the various standpoints of the politicians of his day. Though the man had always been a bit bothered by the fact that he had come out of the war alive while his friends hadn't, he seemed genuinely pleased to see that someone actually cared about talking about the time he was familiar with.   
  
His head turned further, expecting to see the two silent members of the group, and realized that they were nowhere to be found. Thor frowned, turned to Tony in time for the baby to be placed in his arms as the billionaire began loading up a luggage cart with their things.   
  
"Where are Natasha and Barton?" he said, failing to notice that Bradley had taken to drooling on his sleeve.   
  
Tony made an aggravated sound, a sigh, and turned slowly around. He forced a smile and placed both hands on Thor's shoulders.   
  
"For the love of God," he said, "don't talk about them. Please. I'm  _begging_  you, Sparky. You're better off not walking across that bridge." The glasses slid down the bridge of his nose, and Tony's eyes widened. "It's about to  _burn._ "  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
"Well, excuse me, but I didn't think I was required to tell you everything about my social life. You're not my mother, Clint."  
  
Natasha folded her arms and leaned back against the counter top. They stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, the kettle on the stove quivering as the water began to boil over from the spout and spill on the burner. It was like a freaking movie, what with Clint pacing about the room, eyes darting from one glass on the counter to the other, as though he'd reach out at any moment and knock them to the floor. It was getting to be ridiculous, particularly in the past few months. Really, it hadn't been a steady relationship for a while. Not since Clint had found out about the event three years earlier that hadn't even been her fault. It wasn't as if Natasha could change her face, her appearance, wear an unappealing exterior and save all the beauty for Clint at home.   
  
Things just didn't work that way, and Clint was a child for expecting them to.  
  
He had really blown up over finding out that, while he'd been out of town on assignment earlier in the year, Natasha had taken to playing games with the God of Mischief. Of course, she'd tried to keep the worst from him, but what with his overreacting and imagination, it hadn't done any good. Clint had figured everything out on his own, and without her having to explain or say a word.   
  
"Just friends?" Clint repeated, a bitter look on his face. Natasha immediately regretted having used those words in her defense. They never did any good. Not to mention how often they were overused on television and in the movies. That, and Loki was more of an ass, and enemy, than anything else. "How can you say that with a straight face?! Do you think I'm stupid?!”  
  
The assassin cocked her head to the side and raised her brows. "Really, Clint? You're asking me that  _now_? What do you think I'm gonna say? That you're not a fucking idiot for screaming in my face about this?"  
  
He scowled and stormed out of the kitchen and down the hall, leaving Natasha to the company of her own thoughts. She hadn't meant for it to go that far. In fact, she'd hoped that Loki would come back again so she could get rid of him, keep the god from continuously bugging her and bringing about a sense of general unease. She'd wanted to lure him in so she could kill him, not push Clint away and wreck everything.   
  
Not a great plan.   
  
Clearly, he was going to leave. Natasha sighed, reached into the cupboard for a glass and poured herself a bit of wine. Fine, she thought. Let him go. He'd come back just as many times as he'd walked out and, if she knew Clint Barton, which she did, this wouldn't be any different. She took a slow drink, didn't bother to turn and look at him as he stopped by the front door and pulled on a coat. Best to let him cool off, pretend he didn't exist for a while. It was damn certain that he'd be doing that himself.   
  
She heard him move, heard the door slam hard as he walked out with what he could carry, probably his bow and arrows above all else, and set the glass back down as his footsteps disappeared.   
  
"Stupid bastard," Natasha muttered.  
  
And she wasn't talking about Clint.


	2. That Which Changes nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "This Night" by Black Lab.

Natasha was furious when she came home a second time, found the door stuck yet again. She made a face, threw her shoulder hard against it, and stumbled inside, kicking the thing shut with a heavy breath. The customer service at the grocery store was quite lacking in both brains and manners, as the girl at the counter had given her quite the run-around. And for nothing more than trying to return a couple boxes of granola bars, which she had been overcharged for, and that nasty bran cereal shit. The assassin had accidentally picked it up for him when she'd gone out after he'd left that morning, somehow forgetting that, once again, she and Clint weren't speaking anymore.   
  
She sighed loudly, tossing the change on the counter top of the bar as she walked into the living room, threw herself on the couch, and turned on the television. The screen blared with light and sound, and Natasha leaned to the side, let herself lie down and shut her eyes.   
  
Nothing she told herself was satisfying. She shouldn't have opened the door for him, shouldn't have played his stupid games, no matter how funny it was when they turned around on him. And she certainly should have kicked him out when he'd started doing _that_  to her. The whole thing left a sickening taste in her mouth and a hole in the pit of her stomach. Clint was right to be mad at her, but it wasn't entirely her fault.   
  
Her eyes opened and Natasha sat up, turned to look at the screen as she heard the sound of dishes clattering together. The news was on the television, and her head turned towards the counter top, saw that some of the coins had fallen off and onto the carpet, and that plates and bowls were steadily appearing in small stacks. If there was a burglar in the house, he was doing a shitty job of being stealthy. Heart beating heavily in her chest, Natasha stood up, crept quietly across the floor, took one of the plates in her hands and, as soon as she saw a head, brought it down hard and caused the thing to shatter.   
  
Natasha had expected to hear a panicked scream, to see the intruder dart towards the door so that she could chase his stupid ass. Instead, he started swearing.   
  
 _"Shit!"_  
  
A hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide as a smile began to spread, and Natasha hurried around the corner and into the kitchen, laughing as he writhed on the floor, head held in his hands. If anything, she should have kicked him for good measure. It was, after all, his fault that all this had happened.   
  
If she wasn't pissed at him for fucking things up for her, maybe she would have apologized. Maybe. Natasha sighed, still smiling as she crouched on the floor, picking up the larger pieces of the plate and opening one of the lower cupboards to throw them in the trash. Loki, on the other hand, kept complaining about being hit, and sat up to glare at her. The assassin didn't pay him any mind. She kind of hoped the assault would leave a mark.  
  
"Before you ask me what that was for," she said, standing and hurrying to get the dustpan from the broom closet, "perhaps I should ask you why the hell you're in my house. Again."  
  
He said nothing, just kept staring at her through his fingers as Natasha swept up the mess and dumped it in the trash can. It took her less than five minutes to return the kitchen to its normal state, and her eyes turned to the dishwasher that now had a wet footprint on the door. He must have kicked it, she thought.   
  
Natasha hopped up onto the counter, stared down at him as she yanked a bottle of vodka from the cupboard, because she needed something stronger than wine, and noted that he hadn't stopped glaring at her. Even so, the assassin carried on about her business, decided that maybe she could be nice enough to offer him a bit, considering she'd just smashed a plate over his head, and poured the liquor into a couple of glasses.   
  
Still, he said nothing. But at least his eyes moved a bit. From Natasha to the glass and back again.   
  
"Well?" she said, and threw hers down. "Are you just going to sit there?"  
  
Natasha didn't know what in the hell was going on when Loki groaned, lay down on the floor and kept his mouth shut. In fact, the whole thing was a little unnerving. She leaned over, half expected him to jump up and grab her by the throat, flip her over and onto the living room carpet with some ill-conceived threat. But he didn't, and when Natasha scooted across the counter top to stare at him, her jaw dropped.   
  
"What in the hell did you do?!"   
  
The god looked exhausted, as though he'd sat fully clothed in a sauna for three weeks, let the heat break him down. The assassin supposed that that was as good a guess as any, all things considered, and had a sneaking suspicion that, though she had asked, Loki wasn't going to tell her a fucking thing. She grimaced, dropped to the floor and muttered to herself about how goddamn stupid men were, that he looked as though he'd walked into a bloody bar fight and had his ass thrown out the door by someone like Bruce. Natasha snickered to herself, remembering how pathetic he'd looked once the Hulk had knocked him down a few pegs. And Tony had been more than happy to clock him right between the eyes when he'd had the nerve to take the billionaire upon his offer for liquor.   
  
The second she grabbed his sleeve, Natasha felt her bones freeze beneath her skin. Her eyes went wide, and it all came back again. In the space of less than four years, he'd caused all kinds of hell and misery. This bastard had fucked New York over twice, and, for all she knew, he'd come back to do it again, make it worse this time.   
  
And that reminded her, the flickering images of Tony dropping out of the sky, Clint dropping to the ground and rolling through shards of glass, that she hated him. She'd been waiting for the god to come back so she could hang him.  
  
Natasha made a face, snarled, shoved her hands against his chest though he still hadn't moved. This was his doing, all of it. People in the city were still afraid of the Avengers,  _hated them_ , all because he'd developed a hellish complex and decided to wage his war against Thor here in Manhattan. And again, three years prior, with the Frost Giants. He'd killed thousands with those monsters. Natasha remembered staring over Tony's shoulder in shock as the news feed had blared through his phone. She had watched a man's blood drip over the camera lens on the channel seven news, listening to him scream as the Jotunn had torn him quickly apart. And he'd laughed all the while, as though the whole thing were part of some ridiculous show on Comedy Central, as though it were something that the rest of them were to find cute and pleasurable. He'd nearly murdered Jane, her friend, his brother's love. And, though he'd come to back down at the end of it all, destroy the beasts that they knew he hated, that had spawned him, the rest of that hell couldn't be washed away.   
  
"This is your fault," she hissed, and hoped that he'd struggle. That way, when she hit him, it wouldn't look petty. "You're the reason he went away!"  
  
He was drenched, Natasha realized, feeling the water steadily soak through her own clothes, as though he'd dropped into the fountain at the local university.  
  
That jerked a reaction out of him, though it was only with the gentle widening of his eyes, the flint lighting that satisfied flame behind them.  
  
The god shrugged, as though she weighed nothing. "It is?" he said, and the confidence in his voice was startling. "As you mortals are so fond of saying, it takes  _two_  to tango, Agent Romanoff." She wanted to slap that damned smile right off his face. "You could have said no, you could have done a hundred other things to drown that appetite. So–"  
  
Natasha frowned, wished she hadn't picked up the pieces of the plate, because she'd like nothing more than to stab him now.   
  
"No! If you didn't keep coming back, he'd still be here!"  
  
"I suppose you're expecting an apology. Again."  
  
The thought hadn't even occurred to her. Natasha sat back, stared as though he really meant it, as though the pompous God of Mischief would suddenly put her at ease with little more than a few words. But he didn't, just looked at her as though she were a naughty little girl who had been caught with her hand in her mother's cookie jar before dinner.   
  
"What purpose does it serve," he said," to apologize? Suppose you kill a man, as I am sure you've done many times before, discover later that he is not the target you were meant to destroy. Perhaps he has a wife, a child, a boy who will grow up never knowing the love of his father." Natasha wondered if this was some subtle way for Loki to allude to his own daddy issues. "Let's say you find the woman, this grieving widow, and apologize. What does that do? You people like to think that it changes something, that the world goes back to the way it was before because you say you're sorry. What would it change for you? Yes, you can fall quickly asleep at night, rest your weary head and not have your conscience eating away at you in the dark. But what of her? Say she finds it in herself to forgive you. Still, what solace is there in knowing you're sorry, that her husband, the father of her child, is never coming home?"  
  
Natasha's eyes widened as she fell back onto the floor. She could see them all, staring up at her with pleading faces. Recovering children, kids no older than Natasha herself had been when her training had started, her slip into masterful deceptions, watching her through the window of a hospital that she, in her haste to destroy her target, had set on fire. And they burned, all the while etching her face into their minds as they died.   
  
What if she had gone in after them, had managed to save but one of them? That little boy or girl, once held in her arms, would never forget her face, never be able to push away the nightmares of their friends being burned alive. And it wouldn't have mattered worth a damn if Natasha had told them that she was sorry. There would still be dozens of little graves once the bodies were identified.   
  
"It is my fault," he told her, and Natasha found that she sat against the far wall, Loki on his knees before her as he held fast to her chin. "But why should I apologize? To rest  _my_  conscience, to make  _you_  feel better? There is no point. It won't bring Barton back."  
  
Natasha scowled, twisted away and hit him, hard, in the jaw. It didn't do anything to make her feel better, and the assassin hated it.   
  
She expected him to hit back, do something stupid and predictable like threatening her or taking her hostage the way he had with Jane. But as her eyes darted up, the woman saw that Loki had that same look on his usually smug face. The very same he'd sported when the Avengers had returned to Stark Tower to collect him.   
  
"What the hell do you want?" she muttered, eyes cast to the floor.   
  
"I can't imagine you'd be willing now."  
  
"What do you want?" Natasha repeated. "You didn't come here to socialize. Now, what is it?"  
  
Was that apprehension she saw in his eyes? He looked uncomfortable, and the words that rolled off his tongue made her heart sink.  
  
 _"They're coming..."_


	3. Remember, Remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Like Knives" by City And Colour.

Thor laughed loudly and held the baby firmly in his arms, raised the child high above his head and smiled all the wider as the infant squealed with joy, giggled in a manner that was perfectly sweet and incredibly contagious. He leaned back on the couch, ignoring Tony as he called to him, asking if Sparky would like a bit of scotch. The sound fell upon deaf ears, as did the clattering of the glasses and the ice, and Thor drew the child to his face, scraped Bradley's soft little cheeks with the stubble on his chin. Again, the baby cooed and squeezed his eyes shut in utter delight.  
  
The prince had always loved children, had thought that they held a sort of purity to them, the sort that was often forgotten once they grew out of their old habits and clothes and became stalwart men and women. The thunderer had always laughed, had always enjoyed even the most unimportant things in life, but he could not recall a time where he had bellowed quite like this. Not since he'd been a small boy darting across Asgard.  
  
Bradley pawed at his face with tiny hands, and Thor laid the child down upon his broad chest, peered over at Jane who sat at the bar with Darcy, turned and smiled at him. Thor grinned back, sat up and held the baby in one arm as he strode across the room. He took a seat beside the two, putting Jane in the middle, and leaned onto the counter top just as Tony slid the drinks towards the women. Jane seized hers almost immediately, raising it a bit and thanking the man for what must have been the third time, whereas Darcy stared in utter shock at the billionaire who quickly yanked the phone out of his pocket to take a call.  
  
"Yeah?" he said, and walked around the bar to stand at the massive windows. He pulled open a sliding door and stared down at the city for a minute. "Well, damn, Gerald, you should know I can't see the freaking thing from here... Hey, hey! Don't... Don't yell at me, Yoda." Thor was certain that that was a term meant to insult shorter folk. "It ain't my fault you didn't– No, I can't come down there _now!_  I've got company! I... Yeah. Yeah, I'll be down at four, all right? Call Janet and tell her. She'll know what to do. All right."  
  
Tony turned and groaned loudly as he hung up, went on chattering to Pepper about how everyone in the goddamn world wanted him to solve their problems. Not that he wasn't flattered and all, having everyone fawning over him, but that there were just some days, like today, that people weren't supposed to call.  
  
Thor smiled, caught sight of Jane as she began sucking down the drink, probably to avoid laughing. And Darcy, just as before, stared wide-eyed at the Iron Man.  
  
"Are you all right?" the thunderer said, leaning onto the counter to intercept her gaze.  
  
Darcy's eyes did not move as she nodded, leaned backwards a bit to continue staring. "It's him," she whispered, and Thor thought that she looked to be in some sort of trance. "It's really him. He's Tony fucking Stark."  
  
Jane choked on an ice cube then, spit the thing back into her glass and coughed, turned to slap her friend on the shoulder. "Hush up!"  
  
Tony sauntered back behind the bar then, looking rather thrilled as Bradley struggled in Thor's grasp, wailed and leaned forward across the counter, reaching for his father. The man took his son in his arms, balanced him against his hip and continued to pour drinks for himself and Pepper, reaching beneath the bar to grab a third glass and shove one of the full ones at Thor. The prince nodded his thanks.  
  
"So, the princess hasn't said a damn thing all day," Tony remarked, and Thor and Jane exchanged looks. The billionaire pointed to Darcy who really should have stopped staring by now. "Think she needs a massage, or something?"  
  
 _"Yes, please!"_  Darcy all but shouted, rattling the counter top as she hopped up from her seat.  
  
"Yeah, sorry hon," Tony said, and made a face of mock disappointment. "I would, but I'm kind of otherwise occupied." He held Bradley up and the infant drooled, in a long line of saliva, onto the bar. "You know. Smoking hot girlfriend, drooling baby boy. The works."  
  
Before a one of them could respond to that, let alone laugh, Steve and Bruce came up in the elevator, the scientist's eyes wide as he crossed the room swiftly, came to grab Tony by the arm.  
  
"Something tells me the Jolly Green Giant has a problem," Tony said, and the Captain made a sour face.  
  
But Bruce actually laughed, the way Thor might have, and smiled. "Damn, Stark," he said, shaking his head. "You weren't kidding about this place. It... It really  _is_  Oz."  
  
"Candy Land," Tony corrected him. "Remember? We had this conversation while everybody's favorite mendacious douchebag was trying to crush us all like ants."  
  
Thor's brow furrowed, not the least bit happy with the comment even as bright and cheery jazz music came on over the loud speakers. He pushed off the bar, left the stool to spin about as he moved to the sliding glass door and yanked it open. As he went, he heard Tony say that Sparky needed to get the fuck over his hurt feelings and just accept that his brother was a lousy asshole.  
  
He stood outside, had a good mind to slam the door behind him, knowing full well that it would likely break. Thor sighed, stared out across the city that, in three years' time, had been largely returned to its original state. There were still a few great construction projects going on, improvements and additions to the streets and sights of Manhattan, but that didn't change anything. Standing up here, on the top of Stark Tower, he could only ever remember his heart sinking as Loki dropped, barely managed to catch himself on one of the Chitauri flying machines.  
  
What if he had fallen? It wouldn't have killed his brother, but the fall wouldn't have done the God of Mischief any favors. At the very least, he would have been dragged back to Asgard with a broken neck.  
  
"Thor."  
  
He turned, forced a smile as Jane came and held to his arm. And, though he wanted to say something, assure her that he was fine, Thor wasn't one for lies like his brother. In fact, Jane had told him often that he couldn't lie worth beans. Even when he tried his hardest. Thor wished immediately that that thought hadn't come into his mind, for Loki had told him often in their younger days that he was terrible with words.  
  
 _"If you so touch them on my behalf,"_  Thor had threatened him, following an argument with their friends,  _"We will have words!"_  
  
 _"And I will win, for you are lousy with words!"_  
  
"Tony's an ass," she said, and the god's eyes widened. Jane would swear when she was angry, but he didn't think that she'd dare say a word against their host, considering how generous he was being and how much she admired his work. "Just ignore him."  
  
And Thor intended to. Right after he had a little talk with Pepper about her not-yet-husband's manners.  
  
The god sat down on the concrete, leaned back so that Jane could sit and lean on his shoulder.  
  
A sigh and a smile. "I remember the first time we went hunting, our sights set upon bilge snipe." Jane didn't look nearly so confused as she had the first time he'd mentioned the creatures. Though Thor had never been particularly artistic, he had managed to create for her a convincing image of the monsters with a computer program called Photoshop. He had also explained that, as his brother had used to say, they smelled like rotted milk. "We found one, Loki and I. It chased us," his eyes fell, "and my brother received the worst of the damage. And I didn't tell him, even after we had returned home, after he had taken the blame that should have been mine, that I was sorry."  
  
If Jane made a face, he didn't see, having shut his eyes and leaned over. She touched his hand.  
  
"We used to fight all the time," he said sadly, and turned to watch a small group of pigeons as they strutted about on the rooftop. "About everything."  
  
Jane shrugged. "Brothers do that. It's only natural."  
  
Perhaps, but Thor wondered if going to war with one's family was natural as well. If two brothers, who had been as close as he and Loki had once been, were meant to grow to hate each other. If that were the case, then Thor wouldn't call himself the trickster's brother anymore. He wouldn't be a prince or the Son of Odin, either. He'd just be Thor, and maybe everything could change for the better.  
  
It brought him a strange sort of peace, knowing that the last time he had seen Loki, he'd seemed confused, unsure as to whether or not he really wanted to leave. But that had been three years ago, and neither Thor nor the Avengers had seen any sign of the God of Mischief since. They hadn't even heard a peep from him. And that had gotten Thor to thinking of all the things that could have happened to him, if he were even still alive. Each time he had returned to Asgard, Thor had hoped that, somehow, Loki and their father would have managed to reconcile, that he'd be waiting for the thunderer on the broken end of the Bifrost with that crooked smile on his face.  
  
"That they do," Thor said.  
  
But the God of Thunder could not help but wonder, as he cast his gaze to the sky, if Yggdrasil had written out a chapter of their lives where the damage would repair itself.


	4. On The Run

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Tomorrow" by SR-71.

It was maddening, sitting there at the table, staring out the window in hopes that those tempting gray clouds would pour their hearts out and drown the world again. But they didn't, and that made this all the worse. Then again, it could have been the fact that the room was hot from the heat of the oven and the coffee that Loki had refused to touch. Well, that and the fact that, each time he heard the sound of a car alarm go off in the parking lot nineteen floors below, he shut his eyes. From the start of the shrill beep right down to the chorus of wailing, he'd grit his teeth and flinch, certain that the metallic bodies of the Chitauri would show up to drag him away. And Natasha, though she had no idea what was going on, kept laughing at him.   
  
Eventually, she made some remark that he didn't hear, still shaken from enduring an alarm that had lasted for the past fifteen minutes, and grabbed him by the sleeve. Loki growled and pulled away.  
  
"Here," she said, and got up to fetch a glass from the kitchen. The faucet went off for a few moments before the woman returned. "Since you won't touch anything else I give you."  
  
The god stared at it a minute, sorely tempted to ignore the thing just because of that last comment. Rather, he reached for it, touched the side of the glass and turned the water to a solid chunk of ice. Natasha groaned.   
  
"I know you're not stupid," she said, leaning forward. "Quite the opposite. But you do know you're supposed to  _drink it,_  right?"  
  
Loki scowled and bristled, telling her with his eyes that he didn't take orders from a woman. Especially not from her.   
  
"Is this supposed to be a tea party?" he quipped, and the assassin slammed a hand on the table. Loki shrugged, pleased that, at the very least, he wasn't wet anymore. Being cold was one thing, certainly something that he couldn't help, but consistent amounts of moisture sticking to one's skin were just irritating. "I would hope not." Loki flicked the glass of ice. "It is, in a word... lousy."  
  
"Like your attitude," came the biting retort. And the god could have sworn that she called him a "fucking megalomaniac" under her breath.  
  
Promptly, Natasha straightened up and smiled, a notion which Loki knew to be forced. The god scowled and leaned back in the chair, knocking over the frozen glass on purpose. Sadly, it didn't roll to the floor the way he'd wanted it to.   
  
"Who's coming?" she said, and the trickster wished she hadn't asked. Why, he'd almost been comfortable before she'd brought it up again. Almost. "And why? Are you bringing another battle-crazed army?" Natasha pounded the table again, caused the iced glass to move and hit the floor. It cracked. "If you say yes, I'll kill you now."  
  
The god blinked several times. He didn't owe her a damn thing, least of all an explanation. Loki began to wonder, as he turned to stare out the window at the fresh rain, why in all the Nine Realms he'd decided to come back to Midgard to find Natasha. Right now, he was debating whether or not it would have been wise to take his chances with Odin. Perhaps that would have been best, considering that his mother would have...  
  
 _"Damn."_  
  
Frigga had been all but forgotten in the past three years, save for those short moments in which he passed between wakefulness and sleep wherein she dominated his thoughts. She hadn't been the least bit pleased with him when last they had met, and hadn't done a thing to hide it. It rankled, the knowledge that, in all of Asgard, the only hope Loki had was to rely upon his idiot brother. And Thor, as many knew, couldn't talk his way out of a wet paper bag, let alone stand up to the Allfather.  
  
Loki scoffed as she dipped a hand in her drink and flicked the droplets at him. Reaching across the table, the god grabbed the cup and pulled it away from her. He was really starting to think that he should just leave and go back to Asgard. At least he wouldn't have to put up with this manner of abuse. But the instant Loki moved to stand, Natasha sighed.   
  
"What are you so afraid of?" Silvertongue froze. "Don't try to tell me that you're not," Natasha laughed, and Loki shook his head hurriedly. This was just getting worse. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be shying at every sound, looking over your shoulder like a prisoner on the run."  
  
She told him that he behaved as though the car alarms outside were the sounds of alien spacecraft, and that made the God of Mischief feel suddenly dizzy.   
  
There was a big black spot, a shape that, the more he stared at it, manifested as one of the Chitauri craft, likely the one that had been meant to carry Thanos to Midgard. The stars seemed to fade into nothing then, as though they were being swallowed whole by the expanse of the ship, never to be seen again. He'd be one of those, Loki thought, and didn't dare to think on what misery had been endured when they had found him, thought him to be an invader, a threat to the workings of their leader. That unspeakable hell had been more than Odin, with all his rage, would have courage to conjure.   
  
"You better not be having a stroke!" Natasha shouted, and she was hovering above him on the floor, painted mouth twisted into a grimace. Her hand moved, and the assassin pointed a finger at the thermostat on the opposite wall. "It's sixty-three in here!"  
  
"Thanos," he murmured, and felt his heart begin to race. Was this what true terror felt like? Was this what the iron grasp of power could force into the hearts of men, of ants?   
  
The woman's fiery hair bobbed as she leaned forward, confusion evident upon her face. "Thanos?" she repeated, and Loki flinched. It sounded worse when he wasn't the one saying it. "What the hell is Thanos?"  
  
Pushing her aside, the god shook his head and stood, looked to stare out the window as the rain began to pour. Thunder roared in the distance. Was that the only choice left for him now? To run and find his false brother, beg for his help? What a sickening thought it was, even more that he'd dared to create it himself.   
  
Loki didn't hear her, pushed the assassin's voice from his head as he swept his coat off the back of the chair, found himself standing out on the balcony as the world went about its business far below. It wouldn't last long, the peace. It never did. The God of Mischief had interrupted the monotonous hum of the mortals' temporary complacency twice now, writ himself into the pages of their history as an enemy, the hated brother of their beloved hero. But none of that would matter soon. Perhaps not in days or even weeks. But, soon enough, the Chitauri would come for him, and it was certain that Midgard would suffer as well.   
  
"Where are you going?!" Natasha shouted, and Loki stood on the railing of the balcony.   
  
"Outside. Where else?"


	5. A Little Messed Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "World So Cold" by Three Days Grace.

The chatter of Earth was pleasing to his ears, caused his eyes to light up and for his smile to beam, turning it even towards those that returned the joy on the god's face with a dirty look or an inappropriate gesture. He could not be swayed, could not be turned away from the excitement that rattled in his very bones. Here he was, in one of the greatest cities in the world, strolling about with friends the likes of whom he'd never thought he had chance to meet. The only thing that could make this day, though wet and dreary with wind and rushing rain, was to have the warriors of Asgard beside him as well. It was just a shame that they had other matters to attend to within his father's kingdom.  
  
After some time of conversing and shopping and much walking, their rather large group had easily dwindled down to just himself and Jane, and they stood quietly together at the corner of a crosswalk, waiting for the sign to change. The instant the little walking man lit up white, the woman started forward, but Thor eyed a rather large puddle warily. There was something he'd heard about here on Earth, he believed it was called the Law of Displacement, or something along those lines, that in which liquid surged upward when the weight of an object was put upon it. Though not entirely certain of that which he had recited in his head, Thor did know that, were Jane to tromp through such a large amount of water, she'd end up with water in her shoes.   
  
She turned to look at him as a flurry of other people moved, skirted around them as well as the puddle to cross the street, and Thor, without even a word, placed the handle of the umbrella in Jane's hand as he lifted her and started walking proudly through the water to the opposite sidewalk. It was some time before the god thought it best to let her back down again, as he did not want her feeling the slightest bit uncomfortable and wet.   
  
"Well, that was sweet," she said, and Thor smiled even wider. "Did you hear about lunch?"  
  
The god turned his head. "What lunch?" He wasn't particularly hungry, and it was past noon, but Thor would gladly go ahead and eat if Jane needed to. "Now, you mean?"  
  
"No, not now," the scientist snickered, and pushed him lightly as she slid her arm into his as they walked. "Weren't you listening before? Tony and Pepper have arranged a fantastic lunch for tomorrow. Haven't you ever wanted to just sit in the sun and enjoy a meal while looking out across the city?" Jane was ecstatic, her eyes bright as though she'd traveled by way of the Bifrost herself.   
  
He hadn't really, for such things were commonplace for a prince of Asgard. But, nonetheless, it was clearly thrilling for Jane, and so he would agree. Thor would very much like to see the whole of New York from atop a lavish rooftop hotel and restaurant. Particularly with their friends present.   
  
"I am fine with whatever you decide," he told her.   
  
Her reaction was the opposite of what the god had expected, for Jane promptly stopped, still holding to his arm, and stared. She tilted her head, a blank expression upon her face.   
  
"You don't want to?"  
  
Thor's eyes widened. That wasn't what he had meant at all. He certainly hadn't intended to alarm her, either.   
  
"No," he said hurriedly. "I did not mean... That is, I would very much like to–"  
  
A shrill scream stopped him dead, caused Thor to turn his head swiftly just as a squad of police cars and an ambulance whisked past them on the street, kicking up water and grime. He seized the umbrella from Jane, grabbed her and forced the two of them to duck behind it, shielding them from the unpleasantness of the moisture. When they had passed, Thor moved his head to peer down the block, noted that there stood a large construction site some ways away, and that the emergency vehicles had screeched to a stop in front of it.   
  
He and Jane exchanged a quick glance, and Thor lifted her into his arms again, took off running and weaving through the traffic that had started to move again. People honked and screamed at him, shouting curses and threats that he paid no mind to. He just kept running, something deep in his gut insisting that he move ever faster, that he keep going, drawing him towards the unknown scene like a powerful magnet.   
  
Citizens had gathered by the time Thor stopped, skid to a halt in the mud and gently began pushing his way past the people. The two of them were met with a barricade, several uniformed officers soaked through as they set up the security tape, insisted that everyone keep calm and move away. But Thor ignored them, stood on tiptoe and clapped a hand on one of the officer's shoulders until he was shoved back, though not before having set his eye on a small group of paramedics crowded about on the ground.   
  
"No."  
  
Thor scowled as he pushed back, several men coming out of nowhere to pull him away, shouting over the roar of the crowd. He heard Jane's voice then as they were tugged apart, and he panicked, fearful that he had lost her in the chaos, and with no idea whether or not the figure he'd seen had been but an illusion. He struggled, dropped his heel hard on the foot of one of the officers, not giving a damn that Director Fury would hear about this later and eat him alive, and shoved his way past the people, barreling his shoulder into one of the uniformed men. The yellow tape tore at his waist as they fell through, the others on the scene drawing their weapons and demanding that he stand down immediately. Clearly, they didn't care if he was one of the Avengers, assuming they knew. But Thor ignored them, wove between the men and slapped the firearms to the ground, vaulting over the paramedics hunched over in the mud.   
  
Dropping to his knees, Thor pushed them away, stared with eyes wide and felt all the fight leave him.   
  
This must have been a lie, he thought. He wanted it to be. A cruel spell cast upon him by some unknown specter, for he had thought of Loki at nearly every minute in the past several days, despite his best efforts not to. But this, he realized, reaching out to touch a cold hand, was very real.   
  
They came for him again, more of them this time, some holding guns at him while the others struggled to lift him off the ground. Thor frowned, clung tightly to the sleeve, and refused to aid them. If he died, then he'd die here, cold and soaked through by the rain. With his brother. The way it had always been meant to be.   
  
"Leave him alone!" he heard Jane shout, and turned his head to see her shoving her way through the crowd, ducking beneath the tape. Her face was red, hair sticking to her cheeks and forehead as she shouted, demanded that they be the ones to back off. And it cut him to the core to hear her tell them who he was, that he was one of their saviors, one of the Avengers. "Just... Let him be!"  
  
Thor shrugged away from them, tried to quiet his erratic heart. This was how it should have been, years ago. He should have held on, should have grabbed his brother's arm while he'd had the chance, kept him from being swept away and into all this madness. He frowned when Jane made it through, put her hand on her shoulder and shuddered. She shouldn't have been this close. If she were to be hurt again...  
  
One of the paramedics stepped forward. "He jumped."   
  
"He wouldn't!" Thor snapped, wishing he was as confident as he sounded. But he knew better, didn't he? He knew that, though Loki had let himself be dragged into the darkness of space, he wouldn't come to Midgard to die. His brother had made foolish choices, but he certainly wasn't stupid. "He–"  
  
The God of Thunder flinched, fell backwards as Loki bolted upright, eyes wide. He swallowed, looked to Thor, almost with glee, and groaned. Something about now being covered in Midgardian filth. Thor didn't hear anything after that, didn't hear Loki growling at him to let go, get off. It was just his own heart, pounding like Mjolnir against the inside of his chest, crying for joy. It didn't matter to him that Loki wanted nothing to do with him, would prefer that he and the rest of the Earth perished under his heel. He'd waited many sleepless nights, wondering if his brother would ever be seen alive again, to come to this moment, embrace Loki for what could be the last time, even as he sat in mud and drowning in rain.  
  
Jane touched him again, tugged on the shoulder of his shirt.   
  
"Thor..."  
  
He made a face, bit the inside of his lip as Loki pushed him away, moved to rub the back of his neck. Those eyes that hated him so, had been kind once, had grown cold and hard over the space of several years, stared right back. But it was not anger he saw, but apprehension, desperation, the likes of which Thor had nearly forgotten.  
  
Loki smiled, forced and not the least bit the sardonic grin that he had come to bear, and Thor felt breath catch in his throat. Whatever this supposed visit was about, it wasn't good.   
  
"Hello, Thor..."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
They had all but dragged him back to their hotel, generously procured for them by Tony and Pepper, after explaining a load of crap to the police and making the excuse that Loki was impulsive and didn't know what he was doing half the time. Crazy, though neither of them had had the nerve to actually say it. Fortunately, the God of Mischief had kept his mouth shut and played along, allowing them to get away.  
  
Well, his little magic tricks hadn't done them any harm in getting back to the room, and they had found out that Loki had all but flipped his shit and fallen off the beams of the building when a semi had streaked through the intersection with its horn blaring. Though Jane did not just how that applied to anything.  
  
Thor had practically thrown him across the room, overcome by shock and anger and a myriad of other emotion that, due to his growling and sudden inability to form a coherent sentence, Jane had assumed to be driving him utterly mad. She had removed him for a time, sent him to go wash up in the bathroom while she took care of Loki. Of course, the moment Thor had shut the door behind him, poor Jane had felt her heart sink.   
  
The last time she'd been alone in a room with this man, he'd kidnapped her. Whisked her across an unseen pathway into space, presumably part of the World Tree, and into the cold landscapes of Jotunheim. What had happened after that was something that Jane preferred not to think about, for it had involved a multitude of body parts and murdered Frost Giants. She shuddered, and forced herself to sit in a chair that was set a fair distance away from him.   
  
Strangely enough, the longer she stared, the more Jane found that he didn't frighten her anymore. He wasn't trying to kill her, trying to kill Thor, or laughing, mocking her as she screamed and demanded to be set free. He just sat there, dripping wet on the carpet and leaving smears of mud on the furniture as he shifted, turned to stare back out the window. Considering that most of the furnishings in the room were stark white, Jane hoped that, when and if Tony received a bill for damages, he wouldn't be too upset. She'd apologize whether he was or not.   
  
"What were you doing?" Jane said before she had chance to stop herself. From the bathroom, Thor could still be heard grumbling and splashing about in the sink. Perhaps he'd stay that way for a while.   
  
"Aren't you going to run?" Loki's tone was monotonous, disinterested, eyes dull and gray. Where was that obnoxious, self-confidence, the usual, dangerous, luster that graced his features? "Did our last encounter teach you nothing?"  
  
Jane frowned, rolled her eyes openly at the remark. The god was trying to scare her, that much was certain, but he was doing a rather lousy job at it.   
  
"You aren't going to hurt me," she said coolly.  
  
The trickster's eyes turned to stare at her in the glass. "Are you so certain?"  
  
The door to the bathroom opened then, Thor emerging as he shut off the light, water still rolling down his cheeks. He took one look at his brother and flew across the room, hands curling into fists the instant Thor was close enough to grab him. Jane shut her eyes and grimaced, a sickening thud shaking the portraits on the wall, the vases on the tabletops. The carpet, she doubted, had done anything to cushion the blow.   
  
"What is wrong with you?!" Thor yelled, and the woman was sure that everyone in the hotel could hear the ruckus.   
  
"I do recall one instance in which you explicitly told me that I am  _not_  a monster; that there is  _nothing_  wrong with me." Even choking under Thor's weight, the prince of lies managed to chuckle. "Was that all just talk?"  
  
Thor growled, and Jane took that as her cue to intervene. She crossed the room and smacked the God of Thunder hard on the shoulder, though it probably seemed like more of a tap to him, and pulled on his sleeve until he stood upright again, allowed himself to be removed and pushed into the chair that Jane herself had previously occupied. When she turned around, Loki was fussing with his hair, as if considering whether or not it would be appropriate to shake the water out of it. He opted for dealing with the discomfort.   
  
With a hand, she motioned to him to sit beside Thor. Loki refused, scoffed at her. Jane was quickly moved aside by his arm, and Thor bristled in his seat.  
  
"Do think that by bringing me here you've done me a kindness? You really are an idiot." The amusement faded from Loki's tone, hand reaching out to slap Thor across the face. "Can you not just leave me... as you once did?"  
  
"You let go," Thor snapped back, hands settled upon his knees.  _"You_  let go. Not I."  
  
"You destroyed the bridge!"  
  
"You tried to have me killed!"  
  
"Because you were never supposed to come back! You were supposed to stay here, never to find out about the Odinsleep, about anything!"  
  
Jane had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. But this was getting them nowhere.  
  
"All right, that's it!" she said, and turned quickly around, grabbed Loki by the sleeve and shoved him onto the couch. He looked about ready to kill her. "I don't claim to know anything about Asgard or gods or  _any_  of the crap you guys keep fighting about!" Jane threw up her hands and sighed. "But I know something's wrong here. I feel like... I'm in charge of couple's therapy here."  
  
Loki quirked a brow, looked at Thor. "Couple's therapy?"  
  
The thunder god nodded. "It's when a romantically involved couple sit down in a room with–"  
  
"Forget I asked." The trickster glared at Jane. "Do not make that comparison again. Please."  
  
That took her by surprise. Even being a mendacious douchebag, it seemed Loki at least had some manners. Then again, what with being a prince of Asgard, that was probably commonplace among his people.   
  
"Then stop fighting!" She pointed to Thor, "I only know about you because you tell me," and looked to Loki. "And I don't know crap about you, except that you hate him! That you want the Earth to suffer!"  
  
The god shook his head. "Your people don't matter to me. Not anymore." A nervous laugh. "Never thought I'd be the one to say this, but there are far worse things waiting for Midgard." He pointed out the window. "Just beyond your precious stars."  
  
Thor's head turned, his irritation vanishing in the blink of an eye. "Is that why you're here? To warn us?"  
  
"I am not so generous. Rather," Loki sighed, "I thought that you might..."  
  
"Are you asking me for  _help?_ "


	6. Sleeping Sickness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "The Posthumous Letter" by William Control.

The room was lit up, bright as though the stars in the heavens had been caught within the weaving of a net, dragged down to where a man could reach them, tug them, in all their glory, indoors. It didn't look gold anymore, the walls, the columns, not with so much light, so much peace. Still, he paced, fitful, erratic, moving from one end of the room to the other, counting all the while. Five hundred one way, six on the way back. Perhaps it had something to do with the table, clean and polished, standing in the middle of the hall. Were there a few lingering people present, half empty casks of ale, he could have smiled, been satisfied that he'd missed out on another miserable social event.  
  
Out the wide arches of the windows, there was no light, no stars, no moon, just the heavy blackness of the night, as though everything bright and beautiful had been trapped in the room with him. There were no signs of life, of people wandering the grounds, bustling about in the city so far below. Just the faint outline of the buildings swallowed by the blackness.  
  
The doors creaked, opened wide, and there she stood, radiant as he had ever seen. But there was no smile to grace her face, nothing to light her up and give off warmth. Her demeanor was frozen, and that left a sickening taste in his mouth. Of course, she'd still be angry. Perhaps Odin had poisoned her against him as well. Just one more reason to hate the king.  
  
No sooner did he think such things that she drew her hands up, laid them flat over her ears and screamed. Whatever that light was, so high above their heads, clinging to the ceiling, it began to burn, to shriek with the sound that plagued him more than that of her cries. They had surely followed him here. The whole thing came crumbling down then, the stars dropping like stones, cold and dead and dark, leaving harsh holes in the floor. Only one remained, at the highest point of the room, burst into brilliant flame before it began to fizzle out, smoke rising through the windows and obscuring everything in sight.  
  
He shut his eyes, as if to insist that the whole thing were just some twisted dream, but they kept coming, the screams, and when the trickster chanced to look, there they all were, the party goers, dropping to the floor and engulfed in flame, the rest of them taking chance to flee through the windows.  
  
Above, he heard one of them shout, and looked up, heart sinking as that hand appeared, every bit as cold and blue as those of the Jotunns, but far more feral, barbaric. The only thing, so far as he could remember, that had ever had strength enough to strike fear into his very soul.  
  
He was all but transparent then, standing in an expanse of blackness, startled to see that he could look right through his own shaking hands, see the bones that any man could snap like twigs off the trunk of a tree. What had happened to all of them, the social elite that were Odin's guests, his mother? There was a heavy feeling in his gut, as though he could drop to his knees and vomit, send it all rushing away into the river. Yet, when he dared to look, there it was again, the hand, reaching out of the darkness, pulling him back into oblivion by its harsh grip about his spine.  
  
And there wasn't a damn thing for him to hold onto.  
  
Loki's head snapped up then, eyes wide as the television screen blared. The room was the same, still held the scent of canned soup and the chill of the rain that kept on outdoors. To the left, the windows and curtains. To the right... Thor, sitting quietly on the floor, on his knees, the remote forgotten on the white carpet as he stared, eyes as deep as Loki had ever seen them. They only got that way when the thunderer was scared, anxious, he remembered. Otherwise, Thor would have looked the way he had when he'd brought down a lion with naught but a stone. His eyes had been hard that day.   
  
Neither of them said anything, though Thor shifted gently forward, sat beside him on the couch and, gradually, leaned until his hand came to cup the side of Loki's head. He should have said something, pushed Thor away, done anything to insist that he didn't need this, that he had no need for the quiet, awkward sort of comfort his brother always offered. But how could he? Though a product of his own convoluted mind, he had watched the palace of Odin break and burn, watched his mother die, had seen the hand of Thanos come for him.   
  
It was no great wonder he'd stopped trying to sleep.  
  
"She is well," Thor whispered, as though he had been granted chance to see the trickster's thoughts. "They all are."  
  
Loki would have been satisfied to only hear about her, not having given much of a damn about Odin or the warriors of Asgard since he'd last seen them.   
  
"She asks for you."  
  
That caused him to turn, stare with tired eyes at Thor. The God of Thunder couldn't lie. He wasn't quite clever enough to take the time, to exercise the patience, to understand all that went into a convincing falsehood. Which, by default, insisted that Loki was the one with doubt, refusing to believe that Frigga would want anything to do with him after all he'd done.   
  
As had been expected, the two of them had fought once Thor had taken him back to Asgard from Jotunheim, after he'd been paraded before Odin's throne, a traitor to the kingdom and an outcast. Of course, he had flaunted his superiority, exposed the Allfather for the liar that he was, the master of the grand charade and cause of all their troubles. Thor had hit him, as he had always done, once Loki had mouthed off about burning Asgard to the ground, grinding her people into the dirt. He could not speak that way in front of their mother, Thor had told him. Remembering his own foolish words, the God of Mischief hated himself for them all the more.   
  
 _"Your mother!"_  he had said, as though she had never belonged to him.  
  
Time and again he'd disappointed her, given the queen reason to fret, means with which to lie awake at night and cry. He'd lied for Thor all their lives, shouldered his brother's blame, for it was far easier to be the bane of Odin's existence than to watch the thunderer suffer under the blow of a harsh word. He had caused nothing but trouble for the whole of Asgard, done everything in his power to tear his brother's affection from the warriors, to ensure that their mother's love remained loyal to him, and for what? Why had he allowed himself to play the fool for the sake of the brother he had come to resent so early on? Why had he cared if a one of them held other allegiances? Part of it had been jealousy, that which had violently manifested following Thor's fall to Midgard. But the other was an outlandish thought, the likes of which Loki had detested, particularly upon every blasted Name Day.   
  
To be seen, to put to rest all those feelings of horrendous inadequacy. The Prince of Shadow had grown tired of lurking in the dark.   
  
What a living contradiction he was. To detest attention and then come to crave it.   
  
"She mourns for you," Thor told him, and the power began to flicker until the gentle hum of electricity died out.   
  
"And what of Odin?" Loki couldn't care what the Allfather had in store for him were he to return to Asgard. A foolish old man he may have been, but it was certain that the king would be keeping watch about the palace. There was doubt in Loki's mind that his gateways would grant him much of an advantage now. "Doe he share her sentiment?"  
  
Thor's eyes clouded over, dropped to the sleeve of his ridiculous plaid shirt. Loki had expected as much. He hadn't been holding his breath for news that Odin would have had such a swift change of heart.   
  
"Who is coming? What do they want?"  
  
Oh, there was a lovely thought, and right after the last.   
  
Loki did not answer right away, but waited, held his breath. Even on Midgard, it was certain that walls had ears.   
  
"You can tell me," Thor prodded. "We're brothers."  
  
The liar prince shook his head. Why did Thor always feel the need to use that line? They were not brothers, they weren't even of the same realm. But just telling him that straight wasn't ever enough. Thor had to be gently persuaded. With smaller words.   
  
"And if I say that I have no brother?"  
  
He had said that once before, when they'd lie down in the sand on the shore at dusk, watch the stars blink steadily into existence and burn. Before he had grown to hate Thor, wish that he would be set adrift and torched as all fallen warriors were. But, of course, were the golden son of Odin to have passed away, Loki would have been eternally eclipsed.   
  
Thor sighed loudly, a sound that seemed more like he was snorting. "Then I will just be Thor."  
  
As if words could change anything. As if a man could change who he was simply by stating that he would be something else. As if Thor, God of Thunder, heir to the throne, Son of Odin, could ever be anything but what he was, by simply swearing that he would only ever be known by his name. He could not change anything with such base logic, by promising someone else that he would not be the man he was born to become. It would be the very same as what Loki himself had done. Trying to prove his existence as an Asgardian by destroying Jotunheim, leading the frost land's people into gruesome battle before killing them all himself.   
  
He was Loki, traitor to Asgard and a Jotunn, while the man beside him was everything that Loki knew he could never have.   
  
"Loki?"  
  
The god grimaced. Somehow, being on his own for all this time, not hearing his own name, it had become foreign. Something that, now, did not seem to be his own. Did it even define him anymore?  
  
"Do you love me?"  
  
He hesitated, frowned. His mother had used to ask him that as a boy. She would ask if he loved her, and Loki would smile, say that she must have known that he did. Thor would ask him that after they'd come home with broken bones and blood in their hair. To which Loki would say that he'd die for his brother's sake. As he always did, Thor would smile.   
  
"I don't know..."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
The two of them had sat in the dark for several hours, not exchanging even a word following Loki's response. The words had not wounded Thor, but frightened him, for he had always ever imagined how lost his brother was, had never had any real proof save for the trickster's actions, the steadily growing sheen of desperation in his gaze. But to hear it from his own mouth, the uncertainty and fear, Thor himself had wanted to break down and cry.   
  
Perhaps, if he had, Loki would have found the nerve in himself to shed a tear as well. He hadn't seen his brother cry in so long.   
  
Dawn was not warm as it should have been, for the rain clouds, though holding in their moisture, still lingered high in the sky, a visible threat. The god awakened to the sound of the bathroom door opening up, cracked his eyes open and saw that Jane stood staring at him, as if to question just why the two of them were passed out on the floor.   
  
"Is he...  _drunk_?" she asked when Loki groaned. "Thor, I know he's your brother, but I am not missing out on this lunch just because he got himself stoned!"  
  
Thor shook his head. It had taken hours for him to silently coerce Loki into getting some sleep, for it was clear that he had not dared to in quite some time. Though it was only for a few hours, Thor hoped that it had done his brother some good.   
  
Pushing off the floor, he hurried into the bedroom and yanked on some clean clothes, frowning as Loki stared when he came back. He'd all but forgotten that Loki didn't stay half-asleep very long.   
  
"What?"  
  
The trickster shrugged. "You look miserable," he said. "Like a lumberjack."  
  
Thor looked to Jane who laughed, dropping her coat to the floor. He said nothing, for he had no idea what to say to that, as he had always been under the impression that lumberjacks were men of quality, what with working long and hard hours out in the great and wild frontier. Thor hadn't once thought that they might be unhappy human beings.   
  
He bent down to pick up Jane's coat and to fetch the umbrella from the closet as a knock came on the door. Not a one of them had chance to grasp the handle before the thing flew wide open to show Pepper with a smile on her face and Tony with a baby carrier strapped to his chest. Little Bradley didn't look too perky either, even in such a cute little knit cap.   
  
"Don't say a word," Tony snapped, pointing a finger at Thor.   
  
The god drew his lower lip into his mouth to keep from laughing. Surely, Tony had not opted to wear such a thing with his designer jacket and trademark sunglasses. Even so, he looked incredibly ridiculous.   
  
"How did you get the key?" Jane asked incredulously, staring at the silver thing in the billionaire's hand. "This is a  _hotel_. I know you rented us the room, but they aren't supposed to just hand off the key to whatever fool asks for–"  
  
"Relax, Flame Princess," Tony said, tucking the thing into his pocket with difficulty. He had to shift and move Bradley over, which caused the baby to scream rather loudly. "I own the joint."   
  
The look on Jane's face changed, and she rolled her eyes. "Of course, you do," she said.  
  
Grabbing his own jacket off the back of a chair, Thor tugged it on and smiled. "Well, shall we be off then?"  
  
Pepper didn't move even as he and Jane moved towards the door. She just stood there, staring with wide eyes that made Thor remember that there was a fifth person in the room. He sighed and wished that he'd remembered the plans that had been made for today. And that Tony and Pepper would be stopping by to collect them.   
  
"Tony..."  
  
The man turned as Pepper tugged on his sleeve, followed the unseen line of her finger as she pointed to Loki. The god didn't so much as smile. The billionaire's jaw promptly dropped, and the baby began laughing.   
  
"I swear to you," Thor said, and moved to bar Tony's path for fear that he might start a fight that Loki would probably win. "He means us no harm. Loki will behave himself. Just... Please, do not tell Director Fury he is here."  
  
Tony lifted a hand to his chin, stroked his strangely shaped beard for a moment before breaking into a grin. He stepped forward and clapped Thor on the shoulder.   
  
"Sparky, keeping shit from Fury is one of my specialties. Not to mention the greatest damn pleasure." He paused. "Well, that is, next to the heavenly way Pepper–"  
  
Thor teetered, falling against the wall as Loki pushed past him, looked quietly at Tony before peering down quizzically at the cooing little figure strapped to his chest. For some unknown reason, the God of Thunder had the strange feeling that Loki might kill the child. He didn't have a chance to say anything before Loki pulled Bradley from the carrier and held him up. Pepper looked about ready to have a heart attack.   
  
In response, the baby squealed with delight, which seemed to startle Loki as much as the rest of them.   
  
"Well," Tony said after a moment of awkward silence, and removed the carrier from his person, "normally I don't care, but we've got people waiting for us in the car, and I'm hungry."  
  
Thor quickly ushered them all out the door, slammed the thing hard behind him, and couldn't help but to sympathize with Pepper as she hissed at Tony that the God of Mischief shouldn't have been handling their son, dangerous as he was. But, by the look on the billionaire's face, it seemed that he had no problem with the fact that, now, he didn't have to carry his son around and wrinkle his shirt,  _and_  they had a free babysitter.   
  
The god looked back at his brother, who trailed along behind the group, and could have sworn that, as Loki snapped his fingers to change his attire, he was smiling at the cooing baby boy.


	7. The Wraith King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Iron" by Woodkid.
> 
> Lullaby written by yours truly.

"Not interested."  
  
Her painted lips closed around the end of the cigarette, her head turning to blow a puff of smoke into the man's face. He coughed, waved a hand and frowned, tugged on the chair opposite her, and sat down. This idiot wasn't getting the picture, and it was really starting to piss her off.   
  
The pack of smokes sat squarely in the center of the table beside the tall glass of tea, and the more this jerk stared at her, insisting that he was the best she was going to get in this damn city, the more Natasha considered grabbing her lemon wedge and jamming it into his goddamn eye. It wouldn't hurt to light a bit of a fire beneath that growing nose of his, too. Maybe, with some real heat, Pinocchio would learn a lesson or two on decency and language.   
  
With Clint gone and Loki having run off, Natasha had been assaulted by all manner of filth. Why, just the night prior, she'd been walking home from a bit of grocery shopping down the block when a lazy drunkard decided to take to her and put his greasy hands on her ass. The assassin had promptly dropped her shopping bags and given him the beating that should have been offered by his mother some thirty years before. The bastard had run off with his tail between his legs, and Natasha had cooked herself a nice bit of chowder as a congratulations before retiring quietly to bed.   
  
"Read my lips, jerk," she spat, and reached across the table for his hand. Drawing the cigarette from her lips, Natasha lay the smoldering end of the thing against his palm.  _"I'm not interested."_  
  
The man swore, jumped back and flipped the table as he fell to the floor with the chair. Natasha tugged her coat on and collected her cigarettes, approaching the manager at the counter as he stared at the still wailing idiot. Reaching into her pocket, Natasha pulled out a ten.   
  
"Sorry for the trouble," she said, and the manager only stared. "But you'd do well to keep slime like him out of your shop. Might drive away potential customers."  
  
That said, the woman turned curtly on her heel and marched out the door. Really, with the archer gone and no smartass god to smack around, among other things, she'd been rather bored lately. Being who she was, and given what she was good at, Natasha had never really had the luxury of friends, having moved about so often. But working for SHIELD had been a nice change, a different bit of scenery. But, granted how busy the Avengers had all been as of late, what with their various missions and blooming personal lives, the assassin hadn't been spending much time with anyone. Even Loki's sparing visits for fun and games, to put it simply and cleanly, hadn't been quite enough to keep Natasha occupied for long periods of time. In fact, she could count on one hand the number of times he'd shown up to keep her company.   
  
Natasha sighed, wandered in circles until she nearly walked into a pole. Grimacing, she remembered that something had been put on her nonexistent books for the afternoon. Though, no matter how she wracked her brain, she couldn't quite recall what it was.   
  
"A guy like that has to be in a movie!"   
  
Turning her head, Natasha found that she stood just outside a comic shop. Scowling, she cursed her bad luck. Even being part of the Avengers, she couldn't stand wailing comic nerds.   
  
A group of high schoolers, likely skipping class, stood outside the store, gesturing emphatically to a blown up poster of Tony and his Iron Man suit. The assassin rolled her eyes. One of the kids, a starry-eyed girl, sighed lovingly, plastering herself against the window and tossing her phone to one of the others.   
  
"He's gorgeous!" she laughed, and began to pose, trying to look as sophisticated as Tony did in the picture.   
  
Of course, Natasha knew better. Tony Stark was a lousy ass. Maybe even a lousier father. The man had done nothing but bitch and moan about his son's vomiting and wailing in the dead of night for the past four months.   
  
And that reminded her. She'd been slated to meet up with the others for lunch on the rooftop of some ritzy hotel and restaurant.  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
"I really don't see what the problem is," Tony said, fingering the cigars in the case. He didn't really care for them, but hey, he was Tony fucking Stark. Finally settling on one, he plucked it from the velvet lining, placed the rest of the case back into the drawer on the inside of the limo. Pepper, of course, nudged him again. "Just look at him," he told her, and gestured to their son. "He's happier than a preteen with an issue of Playboy."  
  
That earned him a sharp jab in the gut.   
  
Of course, Pepper wasn't the only one who'd had a problem with it. In fact, the instant they had seen him, the others had quickly hopped out of the car and crowded around Tony. Save for Thor and Jane, that is. Darcy, being fascinated with being in a limousine, had stayed put. Steve had been pissed that he was so damn willing to bring the enemy along with them, but Tony had just ignored him. Old fashioned as he was, nothing Steve said to him was really of any great importance. Bruce had been apprehensive, as had Selvig, who had every right to, considering the fact that the god had quite happily used the doctor as his own personal flying monkey. Really, each concern voiced had a good deal of merit. Loki was a megalomaniac, a psychopath, a sadist, a murderer, and so on and so forth.   
  
Tony, naturally, had just waved it all off with a quick repeat of Thor's words, as he'd had more practice in understanding and subduing his little brother than the rest of them, and had kept his mouth shut about the fact that, with Loki around to entertain his son, he wouldn't have to go around town smelling like diaper and baby vomit.  
  
But, just as he had said, Bradley was rather taken with the bastard god, and Tony found it nothing short of hilarious that Loki didn't know how to react when the baby promptly spit up on the shoulder of his jacket. The laughter was short-lived when the trickster raised his brows in mockery at the group and whisked the stark white stain away with a snap of his fingers. Tony bit down on the cigar harder than he'd intended to. Lousy little shit.   
  
Pepper seemed to relax a bit as the baby clung to the god's fingers, used them to hold himself up on wobbly little legs. He bounced up and down, giggling and laughing and, for a minute, the billionaire would have sworn on his father's grave that Loki smirked. For a guy who was such a badass god and usually clad in leather, metal, and arrogance, he certainly seemed to enjoy children.   
  
"You got one?" Tony said, and the God of Mischief stared at him. The man nodded towards his son. "A kid, I mean." Loki shook his head slowly and Tony bit the inside of his cheek as Pepper began pouring them all drinks. The billionaire tapped her on the shoulder. "What about one of these?" The look the woman gave him was pure ire. "Got a pretty girl back home? Bet she's waiting to jump your bones again."  
  
Now, Tony knew that the god didn't understand all forms of human terminology, but he knew a smile when he saw one, and Thor was trying his hardest not to laugh.   
  
"The real question is," Darcy quipped, and the Iron Man was genuinely surprised that, finally, she'd spoken while in his presence. Especially since she was completely obsessed with both him and the Captain. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, unintentionally contending with Steve, and now Loki, for the affections of some awkward virgin. "If she's smart."  
  
The God of Mischief bristled at that, still held Bradly up with his hands as though the infant were but a puppet, and gave the girl a snide look.   
  
"Brilliant," he replied, a slight edge to his voice.   
  
That made Thor crack and laugh even harder than any of them had expected.   
  
Conversation quickly died down after that, save for the audible sound of Darcy's fiery and disappointed gaze, and the the discussion Bruce had decided to strike up with Selvig about interdimensional travel. But, after a time, that too became little more that quiet murmuring, and as Tony leaned back in the seat and shut his eyes, hoping to catch a quick nap before they got to the restaurant, he heard singing.  
  
 _"The wraith king dances slowly, slowly teaching shadows in the night. The wraith king lingers only, only after fading light. The wraith king, stern and silent, waits beyond your door. Open, and watch our shadows dance like ladies ever, ever on the floor."_  
  
He shifted, eyes widening slightly behind his glasses to see that Bradley wasn't squirming, that he had fallen asleep with his soft little head laid against Loki's shoulder.   
  
"The hell was that?" Tony remarked, and fiddled with one of the buttons on his shirt. "I didn't think that gods told stories. You know. What with being gods and all."  
  
"Of course we have stories," Thor retorted in his brother's stead. "Great tales of war, of Asgard's heroes, ancient kings."  
  
A hand was saved dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, I gathered that much. But who the hell tells kids stories, sings lullabies, about phantoms and shadows? That's some messed up shit."  
  
Loki frowned. "My mother."  
  
Tony sucked in a breath and, for the first time in many years, maybe even the first in his life, wished that he'd kept his mouth shut. Why, he could have bitten his own tongue off for blabbing like that.   
  
The Iron Man said nothing after that, thought it best to shut his eyes again until the driver stopped the car.


	8. Worthless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "In Between" by Linkin Park.

It didn't matter in the slightest that she was surrounded by beauty, that, with just a few quick steps, she could be leaning over the railing of the rooftop with her camera, snapping pictures of one of the most beautiful cities in the world from such an incredible viewpoint. It didn't matter that she was in the presence of her friends, that they were all having lunch with the majority of the Avengers. The only thing that mattered to Darcy at the moment, was the man seated across from her, looking bland and disconnected as baby Bradley's hand closed around the silken fabric of his tie, sucking on the end and spitting all over it.   
  
No matter how she tried, Darcy could only stare. Now, she knew it was rude, moreso than pointing, mocking, laughing in someone's face, but she just couldn't help it. A girl like her, a college student, a presently very happy and lucky intern, save for swimming in a few thousand dollars of debt, was just an absolute sucker for attractive men. If one off her long list of beauteous male models and fabulous Hollywood actors just happened to be a psychotic bastard god that, until now, had only existed in Scandinavian legend, she could be perfectly fine with that. Even if everyone else thought she was absolutely out of her mind.   
  
Leaning across the table top, Darcy sighed, accidentally jabbing herself in the eye as she rested her head on a hand. She flinched, tugged off her glasses and swore under her breath as the waitress brought around more water and champagne, rubbing the poor, assaulted thing in an attempt to alleviate the stinging sensation. When she fitted them back onto her face, Darcy's heart sank. Slightly bowed over the plate that he hadn't touched, Loki stared at her, the fork barely moving as he gnawed on it. He seemed more interested in eating the metal than anything else.   
  
Darcy stuck out her lower lip, wondering what in the hell his problem with her was. Any anger she may have held vanished when he turned in his seat, tilted his head and, with the fork still in his mouth, took a napkin and wiped mushy orange baby food off of Bradley's chubby little face. The baby stuck out his little tongue and spit as best he could, drooling onto his bib.   
  
No wonder everyone was so nervous around him. She'd seen the footage on YouTube, managed to sneak peeks of the files allotted to Jane and Thor by SHIELD. Loki was a lunatic in just about every sense of the word. Cunning, obsessive, violent. Not to mention all the other completely inappropriate descriptions that she would not dare voice aloud. And, by inappropriate, Darcy meant "the things that she didn't say for fear of embarrassing herself in front of terribly attractive men."  
  
Beside her, Steve began laughing with stories of his time in the war that nearly everyone, but Tony, found to be entertaining. Normally, Darcy would have eaten that up. But she was curiously distracted now, watching Loki as he nudged Thor in the side, handed the baby off to him, and got up, moved to lean over the railing.   
  
Thor laughed, the kind of laugh that rattled a person's bones, and Darcy excused herself, though it was certain that nobody was listening. Really, it was fine with her.   
  
Darcy took her time, pacing about the wide rooftop, noting that it certainly was decorated, what with bright green plants and marble fountains that, on any other day, would have looked absolutely stunning. It was the rain, she thought, the clouds, the lack of bright, crisp sunshine, that took away from all the obvious beauty. Then again, she didn't quite like the idea of being burned into a crunchy potato chip during a fabulous lunch. Even if she did normally reside in a very heated desert.   
  
Slowly, she made a couple circles around the perimeter of the roof, came to sit on the edge of the fountain nearest the railing, pulled out her phone and played at texting. Just to be safe, she sent Jane a smiley face.   
  
"You people are so obvious," Loki snickered, and Darcy's head snapped up.   
  
"What?"  
  
He didn't turn. "You all think you're so clever," came the reply, "pretending that no one in the world knows what little games you play at." Loki snorted. "Ridiculous."  
  
Her jaw dropped. Okay, he was gorgeous, yes, but everything that she'd ever heard the others say about him was true as well. Loki was an ass.   
  
"I think it would save you a good deal of time to know that I have no interest in any of you." Loki turned, an almost pained look on his face. "Particularly little girls."  
  
That did it. Darcy jumped up, indignant, scowling and biting the inside of her cheek. She was young, she was sometimes silly and stupid and impulsive, but she was certainly not a little girl. God, he was fucking rude, she thought. Stomping her foot, she got his attention, eyes narrowing even more as Loki leaned back against the railing. Maybe he'd fall, she thought. He'd survive, what with being a god and all. Not to mention his easily inflated ego. That would probably help to break the fall.   
  
"Let's get one thing straight," she snapped. "I am  _not_  a little girl! For your information, I'm in college! I'm twenty-three, thank you very much!"   
  
Darcy's expression darkened as he began laughing at her.   
  
"God, you're an ass!" she shouted, and sat down on the fountain with her back to him.  
  
She was content to listen to the others talk and laugh together for a time, before finally acknowledging that, what with him staring at her, that smug smile on his damned face, she couldn't take it.   
  
"Is it because I'm a Poli-Sci student?" she asked, and the god's brows shot up.   
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Political Science, stupid." He didn't seem to take kindly to that, for Loki was clearly not stupid. He had, after all, organized two massive schemes to dominate the planet. They'd failed, but an idiot couldn't have rigged all that. At least, not any idiot that Darcy knew. "God, you hate politicians, don't you?"  
  
"Asgard is ruled by a  _king._ " The god nearly spat the last word at her. Didn't sound like he was too fond of the system.   
  
Darcy leaned onto her hand, made a face as she thought hard. She was plenty attractive, people told her. Particularly without her glasses, which, as Jane like to say, made her look like Velma from Scooby-Doo. Somehow, that thought led to another, and another, and another, until she arrived at the conversation that had taken place in the limousine about an hour before. Tony had been teasing him about children, about women, about sex. And she had asked him, hadn't she? About whether or not there was a woman for him in Asgard. Loki hadn't said who she was, but he hadn't said that she didn't exist, either. He'd simply said that, whoever the hell she was, she was brilliant.   
  
"She used to say that, when our people died, burned, they never really went away." Darcy's head turned. "During daylight hours, they would rest in Valhalla. Come midnight, they would return as shadows and dance. I would search the palace for them, almost every night."  
  
So that's what he was on about. Not pretty women in beautiful ballroom gowns, but bedtime stories. What did she look like, Darcy wondered, the queen of Asgard, his and Thor's mother? She was probably stunning, lighting up the room like the sun. Which reminded her... When the hell was it going to stop raining?  
  
"Oh, and you really ought to know," Loki said, "that twenty-three, in comparison to Thor and myself, is nothing. Why, you're more of an infant than a child."  
  
Darcy frowned. Any pleasant moment they'd had was gone, she thought, and, as she stood, she smiled and tipped him back into the fountain with a splash. At the table, Jane flew out of her seat and stared, a hand clapped over her mouth as Tony began laughing his ass off.   
  
Attractive? Yes. Desirable on every level? Absolutely not. At least, not with that snarky attitude.


	9. Running On Empty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Madness" by Muse.

Jane had thrown quite the fit following her friend's little outburst. She'd yelled after recovering from her shock, though Loki hadn't known if it had been meant for the both of them, and had turned and demanded that someone get her a towel. Thor had just laughed with the Iron Man, slamming their hands on the table and rattling the dishes in a manner that made the trickster believe, for a moment, that he'd been swept back into Asgard. That sort of behavior had been common in earlier years. Thor growling across the table at his friends, spitting stupid challenges at them around a mouth packed full of food. Distasteful, really. Not to mention rude. But this was Midgard, not the gilded walls of Odin's palace. So it seemed safe to say that, among the mortals, such practices were more than appropriate.   
  
Once he'd calmed down, face returning to normal from all his red-faced laughter, Thor had sat beside him, ran a hand through his hair and sent water rolling down Loki's back. He'd said that Darcy had probably just been joking, whereas Loki bitterly thought that the woman's entire existence was just a joke. There were women like her in Asgard, convinced that they could say and do just as they pleased, and without consequence. Thor must have noticed, as he'd thumped Loki on the head as Jane had tossed him a towel.  
  
After that, he'd decided not to take his brother up on any more of these stupid offers for a day out.   
  
He sat back in the room now, not bothering to pay even the slightest bit of attention to Jane as she told him not to sit in the chair that way. Loki scoffed. The differences between the two of them were infinite, and she had no hold over him, even if she did intend to stay on Thor's arm until her end. The trickster only shifted, knees bent as his legs hung over the arm of the chair, trying to put out of his head the ridiculous remarks made by the Iron Man.   
  
It wasn't the laughter that bothered him, for Loki had learned to ignore it, but the comment he'd made about fear, about the fact that the god had refused to move once he'd stepped out of the fountain. The trickster creased his brow, shut his eyes. He hadn't done a damn thing because he'd been cold, and that was reason enough to worry. He knew what he was, a Jotunn, a lie, a black mark on the pages of Asgard's history books, but with all that came the more common knowledge picked up over the years. Winter was preferable to summer, snow and rain and wind more favorable than scorching sunshine, the shifting shadows of the night far more comforting than the life of daylight hours. But the one thing he hadn't felt, not since he'd been a boy wailing for his mother in the dark, was cold.   
  
The spawn of Jotunheim didn't feel ice, they didn't freeze, what with living in the great expanse of a frosted wasteland. They reveled in the bite of winter, the very same way Loki did when he would slip outdoors and into the snow, lie in the gardens and let it cover him. So this, feeling chills skirt across his skin, was more than just bothersome. In fact, it was starting to frighten him.   
  
"Are you still not asleep?" Thor said, and leaned over the back of the chair. He nodded to the clock. It was well past eleven. "I thought you liked to retire early."  
  
What could he say? That he couldn't sleep, or that he wouldn't? What with the Chitauri swimming about in his head at every hour of the bloody day, Loki had since given up on trying, only slipping under when it became too much for him to keep his eyes open. He hated it, falling into the dark for hours at a time, knowing that there was a distinct lack of control on his part that couldn't be snatched back until the mind awakened again. Loki couldn't stand it. It wasn't restful anymore.   
  
Thor sighed, made low, quiet sounds in the back of his throat. His own awkward attempt at a lullaby. Loki laughed.   
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
The thunder god's eyes went wide. "Mother used to sing, didn't she?" he said. "Every night."  
  
"After you were already asleep, I thought. Last I recall, you said you didn't need help getting to sleep."  
  
Thor bit the inside of his cheek, wore a sheepish look. "I didn't want you to think I was a coward," he said quietly. "So I'd wait outside your door and listen. I was the older brother. I was supposed to be the example. So I would play pretend, say that the dark wasn't frightening. Maybe then–"  
  
"The example?" Loki parroted, and stared at the wall. "The great protector? Yes, well, you did a lousy job of that, didn't you?" He was standing at his mother's side again, scowling as Thor and friends rushed through the palace, waving sticks as though they were swords. He'd always hated their games of war. "I never thought you a coward, Thor. Just an idiot. An obstacle."  
  
He wanted to pull away when Thor grabbed his hand. The past few years had changed the God of Thunder, that much was true. But the change had come about nearly fifteen hundred years too late. He should have had this great revelation while they were still darting about trying to become Odin's shadow.   
  
"I am sorry, Brother," he murmured, and Loki didn't have the patience to waste his words again, tell Thor that they weren't anything to one another but opposing forces. He never listened, always found some stupid excuse as to why they were brothers.   
  
Thor's hair bounced around his face as he turned, a soft sound at the door. Loki leaned back against the arm of the chair, shifting again and closing his eyes. Thank the Valkyrie for an untimely visitor, he thought. Perhaps Thor would become so engrossed in talking with them, that he'd forget the pointless conversation he'd been invested in before. It was rather doubtful, though. Thor had never once given up on an argument with him. Particularly when he believed that Loki was wrong.   
  
He heard a sharp intake of breath as the door opened, heard Thor murmur something he couldn't quite make out. It sounded like "go away," though Loki couldn't be sure. He didn't care enough to dwell on it.   
  
The handle of the door slammed against the wall then, and the god leaned back to see what the noise was about, caused the chair to flip onto its side as he caught sight of armed SHIELD agents marching in, Thor dragging one after the other to the ground as he growled. The men fell, caught up in trying to fight off the God of Thunder while the others, rather obviously, made a beeline for him.   
  
Loki swore under his breath and rolled out of the way as they fired, managed to give the chair a solid enough kick and sent it flying towards them. One fell back into another, the both of them tumbling to the floor as Thor began shouting, telling Jane, who now stood in the doorway of the bathroom, to shut the door and lock it. There was no point, for they didn't want her, didn't want Thor. This was SHIELD, the backers of the Avengers, the organization that, the first time he'd come to visit, had gone well out of their way to ensure that Jane wouldn't become one of his targets. This was about Loki. These people didn't want him here.  
  
The god snarled, one of the agents catching him by the arm. His heel came up, slamming into the man's stomach as he bent over, propelling him through the air and into the wall, causing the room to rattle. Loki shot to his feet as Thor sent three more flying through the wall and into the kitchen, having grabbed the coffee table and thrown it against them. Mortals were so damn weak, Loki thought, if they couldn't stand up to just a piece of decorated wood.   
  
"Are you–?"  
  
"Thor, they aren't bilge snipe," Loki huffed, raising his hands and stepping back as Thor approached him. He did not want to be touched. "They're mortals. What possible harm could–"  
  
A black shape appeared in the door, drawing the god's attention. Even as she pointed her weapon at him, he couldn't help but to smile. The woman frowned, and Thor seemed to turn in slow motion as Loki snickered.   
  
"Agent Hill. Pleasure to see you again."  
  
Her expression didn't change. She fired.   
  
He'd been through this with them before when he'd come to Midgard by way of the Tesseract. Fury's agents had done their utmost to subdue him with their guns, which were certainly useful against other mortals, and had ended up the first victims in the deadly game the god had a penchant for playing. That is, complete and utter domination. But this, he supposed, was quite a bit different. Loki hadn't been expecting a storm of gun-toting men and women clad in helmets and Kevlar vests to march through the door to try and take him down. He wan't prepared for battle, clad in the familiarity of leather and metal, for the impact of heated bullets against flesh. It certainly wasn't pleasant, Loki noted, and shifted on the floor with blood cutting its way through his shirt.   
  
It was almost the same as when Natasha had stabbed him all that time ago, and Loki still didn't like having holes in his clothing.  
  
"You killed Coulson," Hill said, and crossed the room quickly, glowered at Thor as he began shouting at her.   
  
She couldn't kill him. At least, not with mortal weapons. They both knew that. But, from the look in her eye, Loki knew she didn't care. She'd likely been hoping for him to come back again, as she hadn't been able to punish him the last time he'd been about, just so she could have her revenge for Coulson's death.  
  
Even so, Loki wasn't going to apologize.  
  
"That I did."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
"What in the name of the living God," Fury bellowed, and Natasha could see Steve cringe with disdain for the statement, "is he doing back here?! I thought we took care of this  _years ago!_ "  
  
Thor fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable and staring only at the little screens that, yet again, showed Loki in a cell. There was nothing confident about the god's air, not when he sat in plain misery against one of the glass panels, bloody and continuously pulling at his collar as though he couldn't catch a breath. Natasha pursed her lips, nudged the thunderer from behind, caused him to take a step forward.   
  
The director turned on him then, his one eye wide with outrage as the God of Thunder sighed heavily. Were he to wait any longer, Natasha thought that Fury just might lose it and smack him. Which is precisely what she'd have liked to do to Tony, who stood behind her and made some quiet comment about how good her ass looked in these pants. Instead, Natasha took a step back, and let the heel of her boot fall hard against the man's foot as she shifted. Peering back over her shoulder, the hotshot billionaire cringed and bit his lip.   
  
Jane touched Thor's arm and he looked to her, sighing again as she nodded.   
  
"Something's coming," the god said, and Natasha nearly slapped herself in the face.   
  
The idiot should have known better than to lead with that, to further aggravate Fury when he was already pissed that the lousy domination-obsessed fucker had come back to Earth again. And New York, to boot. He should have said something more intelligent, for Natasha knew that he had a brain somewhere in that head of his. Should have started off with the fact hat Loki, so far as any of them knew, hadn't come back to hatch another hair-brained scheme to rule the planet before moving on to the other realms of the World Tree. Of course, if she were to say anything about it, she'd get just as much heat for not having reported in right away. She was, after all, the first one the God of Mischief had come to see.   
  
Fury stared at the monitor for a minute, seemingly satisfied with the fact that, unlike the last time, Loki wasn't being a smartass. In fact, he wasn't doing anything but sitting there. He reminded Natasha of the boys she'd been in school with as a girl. The smart mouths who would end up sitting in the corner when they gave the teachers unnecessary lip. Once you were told to sit in that desk and face the wall, you'd be wise to keep your mouth shut and your head down.   
  
"What's coming?" the director said suddenly, and Natasha jumped.   
  
Thor, by the way he'd taken to staring at the floor, didn't know how to answer that. It would seem that Loki hadn't told him anything more than he'd told her.   
  
The assassin sighed, making a mental note to herself that the God of Thunder was going to owe her for this, and stepped forward, pushed him off to the side as Fury's gaze settled upon her instead. And, though she could feel the man's eyes, she didn't dare look back to see if Clint was really staring at her.   
  
"He won't say," she replied coolly. Fury didn't seem too pleased with that. "I would have thought that he'd tell Thor at the very least, but–"  
  
The director pointed to the monitor, tilting his head as he stared at her. "Are you telling me that you've had contact with him, too?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"How long ago?"  
  
Natasha made a thoughtful face. "Three days, at least."  
  
"And you didn't say anything about this?"  
  
The assassin blew a breath out her mouth and crossed her arms, deciding that it was best to weather the storm now rather than later. If she were to wait until this was all figured out, be that in weeks or even months, Fury would have her head on a board, perhaps to be mounted to his wall as a keepsake.   
  
Natasha said nothing, turned to look from one of her friends to the other, noting all the looks of surprise or silence upon their faces. Except Tony. He couldn't be serious unless he was talking. And Clint, she realized, looked far more irritated than anything else. Perhaps he wanted her to have her ass grilled by the director. It would probably make him feel a hell of a lot better, considering he was under the fool impression that Natasha had decided to screw a god instead of him. What a child.   
  
Facing Fury again, the woman began shifting from side to side to hide the tension, managed to catch sight of the monitor yet again. Her jaw dropped and she stepped forward, shoving the director.   
  
"What the hell?!" she shouted, and the others crowded around her, all peering at the screen.   
  
The god was steadily turning blue, and Natasha could finally feel the shock on Tony's dumb face as he looked over her shoulder. He had a hand splayed across his face, eyes dark as he glowered up at the camera. Thor pushed past her and grabbed the screen in his large hands. He shook it, and the assassin thought, for a moment, that he might rip the thing apart.   
  
Rather, he wheeled around and grabbed Fury.   
  
"What are you doing?!" he shouted, and Steve moved to grab the god by the arm, tried to pull him back. But Thor ignored him, his usually peaceful face twisted in a fit of anger.   
  
"Fire and ice are opposites," he said, and Natasha wondered if SHIELD had known that Loki had been going back and forth across the cosmos these past three years; wondered if they had had something planted in her car on the day that he'd started explaining Fire Giants to her. "He's a Frost Giant, isn't he?"  
  
So that's what Fury's plan was. Break down the snowman with a bit of hot, dry air. Not exactly subtle, but certainly effective.   
  
Thor didn't answer right away. "Loki is of Asgard!" the god shouted, a lie, and Natasha could have sworn that the hammer at Thor's hip began to thrum.  _"My brother!"_  
  
"Did any of you even see those things?" Fury retorted, and another screen lit up with footage of the Jotunn assault. Blue, draped in scraps of battle armor and blood, red eyes, and differing patterns decorating their faces. Like tattoos. "They're monsters, just like the Chitauri!" Thor was shoved aside. "Do you really think that, as the director of an organization dedicated to peace and protection, that I can just sit back and let him roam free because the two of you grew up together?!"  
  
The God of Thunder flew out of the room with a snarl at that, and Tony stepped forward, arms cross and with a disgusted look on his usually smug face.   
  
"Oh, yeah," he laughed. "Peace. We've all heard that load before, right? Remember, Nick, you wanted the Tesseract, just as badly as Loki did. Now, I don't claim to know squat about the guy, except that he's a pretty damn good babysitter, let alone why the hell he came back. But I do know that you're a fucking hypocrite, playing the peace card after all the lies you fed us."  
  
"This isn't about peace, Stark!"  
  
"Yeah? Then why'd you bring it up?"  
  
Natasha grit her teeth as a loud sound blared through the room. On the screen, Thor had smashed through the glass, forced the collection of steam and smoke to pulse through the containment chamber, obscuring the camera.   
  
She flinched as Tony teetered back on his feet, having bumped her after being pushed away from the director by Steve.   
  
"We just need to calm down and talk about this!"  
  
"Hey, no one asked you to butt in, Captain Spandex! You wanna lose that pretty face of yours?! Bet the girls won't think you're such hot shit without it!"  
  
"Watch your mouth, Stark!"  
  
"What, you gonna make me? You gonna put a bar of soap in my mouth and put me in the goddamn corner, Rogers?!"  
  
"I said, watch your damn mouth!"  
  
Natasha scowled, moved quickly out of the way as Bruce cut in, moved Tony to one side of the room and Steve to the other, all the while enduring as the two kept shouting at one another. She couldn't take this. She needed to get the hell out of here, get Loki to say something before things got to be even more out of control. So she hurried to the door and stepped into the hallway just as Clint grabbed her by the arm.  
  
"Nat, don't," he said. "You can't–"  
  
"I can do what I want, Clint. And, I'll have you know, what I'm doing is a hell of a lot more than any of the rest of you idiots up here."  
  
She turned again, and he yanked her back.   
  
"Nat, just–"  
  
The assassin shoved him, knocked the bow slung over his shoulder to the ground.   
  
"We don't have anything, Clint. We barely even have a past. So, until you make up your damn mind and stick to it, don't even think about apologizing. It means nothing if it's just empty words."


	10. Struggle Of The Fool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "When They Come For Me" by Linkin Park.

Empty words. That sure got to him, made his mind reel with questions. They'd been together for years now, since the day he'd tracked her down, pinned her to the floor with a gun because she'd kicked his bow away. She'd had blood decorating the already fiery ends of her red hair, and her eyes had been dark, hard. It was meant to happen this way, he had thought, and had leaned forward, her wrists held down with the soles of his boots as the barrel had been pressed to her forehead. The moment he'd seen her during the debriefing, he'd thought she was beautiful. She had a different look about her. Something the archer had never seen in a woman before.   
  
"Come with me," he had told her.  
  
He should have killed her. Clint had known that for years. He should have been punished for not following explicit orders, and she should have died at someone else's hand, a wasted talent and beauty. But, for reasons he still didn't quite understand, SHIELD had trusted him, had taken him up on his idea to have her formally trained, for she had an extensive skill set.   
  
Watching her now on the screen while the others continued to bicker, standing beside the God of Thunder hunched over on the floor, he couldn't help wondering if he'd made the right call. Not only for himself, but for her. Had they not been meant to be anything more than partners on the field, friends who had the other's back with bullets and flame bursting all around? Had it all been a mistake, the time spent trying to fully understand, figure her out, make this all work out? Maybe it had just been a complete waste of time. And maybe he, though it was humiliating to admit, even to himself, had been ridiculously overbearing and, dare he say, jealous.   
  
That made it all worse, though. The thought that he'd allowed himself to feel anger towards the bastard who had all but turned him into a puppet.   
  
He couldn't work like this, Clint thought, even if Fury and SHIELD needed him to.   
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
It was snowing when he awakened, the sky a blank mass of white, pouring out her soft gift upon the ground. The covers were shoved to the side, tumbling into an awkward ball as he darted across the floor, ran through the doors and down the hallway to the other room. Tugging on the handles, it was still locked, and he frowned, turned and ran back through his own chambers and tugged on his boots, threw a cloak over his shoulders and moved to skirt about the outside of the windows until he reached the familiar archway, and hopped inside. He was there, lying in bed under a sea of bright red, and the boy jumped, plopped down beside the other and began to shake him until he stirred.   
  
"Wake up!" he whispered. "Wake up! It's snowing!"  
  
Thor turned, his eyes the only bit of blue he'd seen in the few minutes he'd been up, and blinked.   
  
"What?"  
  
Loki shoved him, grabbed the covers and shook them hard. "Get dressed! It's snowing!"  
  
His brother stared for a moment, rubbed the sleep from his eyes before Loki promptly pushed him out of bed, ran to one end of the room and back again, dragging his brother's heavy red cloak and gloves behind him. The fabric was thrown over Thor's head as he grumbled, said that it was too cold to be going outside, and that it was much too early for Loki to be waking him up. But the little prince couldn't find it in himself to care. It was the first snow of the season, which was always the most exciting and beautiful, and he would not be running outside to play in it without his brother.   
  
"Up!" he insisted. "Up! Up!"  
  
Thor slowly fastened the cloak about his small shoulders, pulled on his boots, and groaned loudly as Loki seized him by the arm and dragged him out the doors.   
  
The two of them ran, and the little prince was eventually overtaken by Thor who, after being jarred awake, began to lead the way. It became a race then, each one trying to push the other as their cloaks hovered just off the ground behind them, making the boys feel as though they were flying. The servants hopped out of the way as they ran, calling after them that they would do well to be more careful. But the brothers did not listen, couldn't be bothered to care as they rushed out the doors of the palace and into the white wonderland, spinning in circles and leaving tracks through the snow, running along the walls and jumping down the stairs until they touched down in the garden, their favorite playground.   
  
The plants were covered, sleeping for the cold season, the water of the ever rushing fountains frozen into strange and magnificent shapes. Beneath their feet, the fish still swam below the ice, kept alive and content by the magic of expert spell casters, and the two laughed, crushing the soft powder into hardened clumps, throwing them at one another.   
  
Loki turned, didn't see Thor's arm move until the snowball pegged him in the side of the head, clinging to his hair while the rest of it rolled down one cheek. A woman like the sun, she looked her best in the snow, he thought, their mother, and she stood at the edge of the lake.  
  
He smiled, ignored his brother and ran until his hands closed around the fabric of her cloak, his head leaned against her hip.   
  
"It's snowing!" he beamed. "It's snowing, Mother!"  
  
The queen turned then, and he stumbled back, falling hard against one of the steps. Her face was blank, smooth, without even a trace of her features present. In place of her eyes sat dark holes, like coal, and a painted white line lay where her mouth should have been. She reached for him, the line curving up into a frightening grin, like something out of a nightmare.   
  
 _"Why?"_  His eyes shut as she, it, whatever this apparition was, spoke.  _"Why did you... leave...?"_  
  
Someone grabbed him by the arm, pulled until, at the last second, he felt a hard blow at the back of his head.   
  
"Get off him, you idiot!"  
  
He groaned, cracked his eyes open and turned, saw Natasha standing behind him with her gun drawn. It would seem that she'd seen fit to whack him with it. Beneath him, Thor shifted, wide-eyed and staring as Loki's hands were knotted in his shirt. God, the fabric felt just as terrible as it looked. Plaid.   
  
The trickster grimaced, toppled back as Thor sat up, still looking shocked as golden hair remained plastered to his forehead, the hammer thrown off to the side on the floor among massive pieces of shattered glass. So that's what had happened. The mighty Thor had decided to play hero again. But, considering that SHIELD was full to the breaking point with petty, vindictive bastards looking to claim that they had successfully killed a god, it wasn't exactly unwelcome. Annoying, yes, but certainly preferable to sitting in a sweltering sauna that, regrettably, reminded him of their first stupid venture to Muspelheim. That had been the very definition of walking through hell. Particularly for someone of Loki's... ancestry.  
  
"Are you all right?" Thor looked as though he might start crying.   
  
Loki hoped he wouldn't. That would just make things worse. "I'm not dead, Thor. You can save your..." The god motioned as though he were ushering a filthy child away. "...emotions."  
  
He grunted as Natasha hit him again. Humans were ridiculously disrespectful.   
  
"He was worried about you, stupid!" she snapped. "Don't just dismiss him like that!"  
  
"Am I supposed to thank him, then?" Loki retorted, and though he was wet and overheated, he was still dripping pleasurably with disdain and sarcasm. Much to the chagrin of many, he had a rather unlimited supply of such things. Throwing about words and a bad attitude was, after all, preferable to throwing knives.  
  
The woman straightened up and crossed her arms. "That would be a start."   
  
There was blood on the floor, the trail leading from the shattered panel to Thor's hands, the fluid having dripped down his arm. Big deal. The God of Thunder had been in worse shape before, what with combating Fire Giants and angering Dark Elves. Unlike mortals, Asgardians didn't fret over petty scrapes and bruises.   
  
"A start," came Fury's voice over the intercom, "would be to find out what in the hell he's hiding."   
  
Loki rolled his eyes. Of course they would all think he was hiding things. Though it was a load of garbage, it really was best for them to think that he might turn on them at any given moment. Much better than the Earth's heroes realizing that the past three years had turned the god into a skittish, paranoid mess rather than the same old bastard with a chip on his shoulder and a taste for revenge. Come to think of it, revenge for past humiliations would be lovely. But Loki had to choose: Let Thanos get his hands about his throat, or suffer through the indignity of relying upon Thor and his idiot friends. The latter was the lesser of two evils, and certainly something he could recover from later. Unlike death.   
  
"If I refuse, are you going to put me back in a cage, Director? I would think that these are rather expensive and time-consuming to set up, even for an organization with pockets so deep as yours." He could almost see Fury sigh as a groan popped through the room. "Now, we can all play nicely, or–"  
  
"You are  _not_  blowing people up again," Natasha snapped, and whacked him again. Was there no end to such disrespect, or was it a common mortal practice? Regardless, it was annoying. "Now, talk."  
  
The Avengers could be heard arguing over the intercom, Stark with his wisecracks and the Captain trying to play "Mr. Mom" and "Mediator" as Fury barked back. Loki shook his head. How in the Nine Realms could he have been bested by these people? Not only were they mortals, but they were ridiculous. Arguing over the most mundane of things, investing themselves in one another's personal affairs, and so on. Why, they couldn't even be honest with one another.   
  
 _"You lack conviction."_  
  
Thor said nothing, sat there among bits of glass and pleaded with his eyes. Or was he staring? It might have been pity Loki saw in his gaze. Maybe he had seen through him aboard the helicarrier, the way Thor always had when they'd been alone. Had the God of Thunder seen his hesitation as Loki had moved to drop that cage, the fleeting signs of his uncertainty? Or, maybe, he was seeing part of that vicious nightmare now. Somehow. Then again, maybe he was just being the dumb puppy that was Thor.  
  
For a dead man, the Agent Coulson might have been onto something.  _Might._  
  
The screaming over the intercom only got louder then. This was ridiculous. Why tell them anything? They were trying to fool him, the trickster god, take what he knew before they tried to kill him themselves. Why bother? Why not just let Midgard burn?


	11. To Challenge The Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Just One Yesterday" by Fall Out Boy.

"Thanos?"   
  
He nodded.   
  
"The Chitauri?"  
  
Loki gave an exasperated sigh and slapped the table. "Isn't that what I just said?"  
  
Natasha groaned. He wasn't giving them anything, this idiot. Just bits and pieces of things that made no sense, and stunned glances over his shoulder each time Tony decided to throw his chocolate covered raisins across the room. One of the two needed to get their shit together and do what was expected of them, and Natasha knew it wasn't going to be the childish billionaire, so she'd have to push the god a bit further. Get him to squirm, if she could, and talk.   
  
"Tell me you aren't considering taking off your clothes," he said suddenly, and Natasha's eyes went wide.   
  
She leaned across the table. "Excuse me?"  
  
The God of Mischief shrugged. "I understand that, under extreme duress, mortal women tend to seduce those who are the source of the problem or information." He didn't look impressed. Or interested, thank God. And then he smirked. "I would hope that, given the severity of the situation and the distinct lack of time, we would be beyond that by now."  
  
Natasha wanted to slap him. And she would have, if she had been given any certainty as to the fact that he would talk afterward. But, considering just how many times he'd expressed his dislike for being physically assaulted, the hypocrite, the assassin leaned back in her chair so as to refrain from impulse. Though, what with Loki referencing certain things between them that were meant to go unspoken, he really did deserve it. She was no prostitute wandering about the streets in the dead of night, and he was a pig for suggesting such a thing. Then again, he was a spoiled prince of Asgard.   
  
"Elaborate," she said, and bent over to grab one of the raisins from the floor. When Tony looked away, she hurled the thing at him and managed to smack him in the side of the head. His look of irritation was ignored. "You can't give me three words to work with and expect my report to be a novel. Who is Thanos? What is he planning? What does he want with the Earth? How do the Chitauri play into all this?"  
  
"First, I don't care about your report. But he is... terrible." That normally smug look was gone. Apparently, this Thanos was just as much a threat to Loki as the rest of them. It was almost laughable. "He wants nothing to do with your planet. Just what is, or was, on it. The Tesseract." Natasha wondered where that had ended up after Thor had borrowed it. "And the Chitauri... well, they are, as you say, his little flying pigs."  
  
 _"Monkeys,"_  she corrected him. Was he doing that on purpose? "Flying monkeys."  
  
"Whatever."  
  
Natasha nodded, looked out the corner of her eye as Agent Hill wrote it all down. The assassin had the sneaking suspicion that, if Loki said one wrong word, the woman would jam that pen of hers into the side of his head. They weren't exactly on friendly terms with one another. Not with considering what had happened to poor Coulson. Hill hadn't taken that well at all.  
  
"You still didn't answer one of my questions: What is he planning?"  
  
The god hesitated, and rather visibly, before shaking his head and snickering at her. "You didn't ask me that," he lied, and turned around in the chair just as Bradley came crawling across the floor. What was so wrong with children that they thought the God of Mischief to be their friend and protector? And why the hell had she agreed to do this at Stark Tower? This place was the biggest distraction. "I have told you everything."  
  
Natasha narrowed her eyes, forcing herself to stare at him rather than the baby that had decided he wanted to be held.   
  
"Liar."   
  
Loki bristled. "Am I expected to deny that?"   
  
"Maybe I should rephrase my question," Natasha replied, leaning forward again. This time, she would hit him if he lied to her again. "What is Thanos planning to do...  _with you?"_  
  
The god swore as Bradley pinched him, and purposely refused to look at her. The assassin was steadily losing patience with him, but she couldn't quite do anything so long as the baby was plastered to his arm. She silently cursed the fact that the two had an obvious, and very weird, fondness for one another.   
  
After several minutes, Loki turned.   
  
"When did my personal affairs become any of your concern, Agent Romanoff?"  
  
Oh, so they weren't on friendly terms anymore. No first-name basis for her. So sad, she thought with biting sarcasm, and frowned. "It became my concern when you showed up in my apartment," she said, louder than necessary.  _"Again._  Oh, and when you decided to come back a second and, now, a third time!" Natasha stood and leaned over the table, grabbing him by the collar. "You've killed _thousands_  of people because you're stupid, childish, and selfish! And if beating the crap out of you prevents another massacre and gets me the information I need, then I will gladly go there!"  
  
He didn't react as she had hoped. "I imagine you expect me to cry now, yes? Let you in on all the dirty little secrets eating away at my blackened heart. Maybe you can  _save me._ "  
  
Drawing in a breath, Natasha closed her eyes as Hill stood up. She could hear the baby whine as he was pulled away from Loki, and, after counting to ten, the assassin let him have it.   
  
With a turn of her wrist, the chair tipped and dropped him to the floor, tugging Natasha along as well. Loki remained unruffled until she straddled him, raised a hand and clocked him right in the mouth. Her vision went white, as though someone had flashed a bright light in her eyes, and gagged, felt herself pinned to the cold floor with his arm at her throat. When the little stars finally faded away, Natasha grimaced. They'd played stupid games before, the sort that didn't belong in the public eye. And, all the while, he would mock her, let that unbridled glee dance about in his blue eyes. But this wasn't fun; this wasn't about who came out on top or personal satisfaction. For him, it was pride, an obsession with proving to her, to all of them, that he couldn't be unmade. And Natasha knew, by the way he scowled at her, Loki would sooner kill her, lose his favorite plaything, than admit that he was scared.   
  
They didn't look away from one another even as Tony walked across the room, clapped his hands slowly.   
  
"Okay, kids," he said. "If you're gonna play dirty, take it to the bedroom. We've already got one baby in the house, and we don't need to see you making more."  
  
Loki stepped off her as Tony grabbed him, lunged forward and caught the billionaire by the shirt and shoved him, hard, across the room. Natasha rolled, eyes wide as the mouthy hotshot fell against the sofa with an audible crack, his own expression that of shock as he sat up.   
  
Natasha jumped up and pulled him back, bending him backwards until she could kneel on the floor, her arms fastened about the god's neck.  
  
"I know that I'm going to  _die!"_  Loki growled, and, across the room, Bradley began to thrash and wail as he was handed off to Pepper as she walked in. "So where is the point in telling you?! What can you do?! What would make you think that, if a  _god_  can't stop this, you can?!"  
  
Natasha turned her head to spit, and stared. Is that why he'd come back? Because he was hiding from this Thanos, afraid to die?   
  
"It... It is like the story your people tell," he said. Was he shaking? "About the man who sought to fly, who dared to challenge the sun. A higher power. He came too close... and he  _burned._ "  
  
"Natasha, there is–"  
  
Thor stared at them as he charged through the door, coming to a slow stop as Loki shrugged out of her grasp.   
  
"What is it, Thor?" she said, and stood up.   
  
The god bit his lip a moment before turning back to her. "We found... something."


	12. Black In My Lungs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Total Paranoia" by Serj Tankian.

This was just not happening. It couldn't have been. They had no way to get back, not with the Tesseract gone, swept away by Thor or Odin to places unknown. The portal had been closed. He'd seen the aftermath, the gaping hole closing as the Avengers had shoved that damned missile right up and into the dark. But there it was, scraping the glass with nails and screeching, causing even the cocky Tony Stark to recoil when he got too close. Nice to see that, when the thing in the cage looked ready to bite his finger off, the Iron Man knew when to shove his hands in his pockets and just shut up. Even so, the creature wasn't ready to sit still. Rather, it seemed more preoccupied with tearing its way though the barrier from the moment Loki had looked at it.   
  
What a headache this was, Loki thought, and found himself tempted to produce flame within the glass. How well did Chitauri stand up to fire, he wondered? Particularly fire conjured by a god. Maybe, if he got Thor angry enough, he could redirect his brother's lightning, fry the thing within the mass of metal. It was, after all covered in the stuff, and things like steel weren't exactly on friendly terms with great amounts of electricity.   
  
"That thing," Loki spat when they turned to look at him, "did not come with me."  
  
Fury sighed, slapped Tony's hand away as he threatened to play with the controls, and leaned back against the railing. Maybe the Iron Man would slip and hit that switch, Loki thought. And, if only they were up in the air rather than in a massive underground room, the poor director would go flying into the ocean. After, of course, he burned up in the atmosphere. That would be nothing short of remarkable. The god smiled.   
  
Though the others seemed only mildly convinced, as he'd nearly dropped dead of a heart attack the very instant Thor had dragged him into the room, the director appeared otherwise. As did poor, bitter Agent Hill.  
  
"How do I know I can trust you?" he said, and the Avengers took to looking back and forth between them. Like dumb puppies. "You haven't exactly made a good name for yourself here on Earth."  
  
The creature leered at him through the glass, probably searching for weakness. These things were likely loaded with technology, similar to the SHIELD agents. Why, it was a safe bet to assume that the metallic intruder was sending out video feed, if not audio, back to Thanos or whoever the hell was in charge of actually dispatching them across the cosmos. And, even if it wasn't, playing the part of the frightened little boy wasn't in Loki's repertoire. Nor would it ever be.   
  
He paced, moving along behind the group and around the cage, watching the beast as it stared right back, following him. How boring SHIELD was, to make every room with a containment chamber absolutely identical. Not to mention tedious. Why, Loki half expected to blink and find himself staring down the chute that would drop him and the cage into the clouds as Fury presented his threat. Maybe Thor would be pleading with his eyes again as Coulson lay dying, begging him not to go on with the madness that would topple Manhattan. Or perhaps the god would find himself trapped a second time, growling at the thunder god after having his head slammed into the glass. That had been a truly miserable day.   
  
"You don't," Loki said, and shrugged. This had to be believable. They had to think that he had complete control over the situation. "I will not give myself a big buildup, Director. I will not tell you that you should trust me. I will only tell you exactly what will happen if you do not... cooperate."  
  
"Which is what?"  
  
"First, ask your  _hero_ ," he motioned to Thor, "what he has done with your precious cube."  
  
They turned on the God of Thunder then, asking questions that, among all their chattering, were easily inaudible. His blue eyes grew wide as he looked to each of them, uncertain as to whom he should address first. It was going to be in Asgard, Loki thought, the one place he could not go to retrieve it, take it the way he had stolen the Casket, used it as leverage against the Jotunns. Were he to set foot in the realm of the Aesir, Heimdall would surely alert the Allfather of his presence, and he'd be forced to run like a rabbit with the hounds on his heels. Surely, it could not only be those of the palace that would seek him out. All the citizens of Asgard must have wished to know what punishment would befall the liar prince and traitor to the throne were he caught.  
  
Loki was all but ignored, what with Thor trying to hush them all and address their questions, their demands, one at a time. But the beast, he noted, had eyes only for him, and the God of Mischief could not resist leaning over the railing himself, drawing circles of light upon the glass with a finger.   
  
How in the Nine Realms had it gotten here? Surely not through the bridge across space, now broken and dead. Had it remained after the battle, gone undetected, living in the sewers, hiding in the dark, listening, watching, waiting for him to return? Had Thanos planned this? Had he known that Loki would fail, that he would come back to Midgard, have no recourse but to turn to Thor and the Avengers? That frightened him far more than Odin and his punishments ever could. For, where the Allfather was old and kind and had method to everything, Thanos was hardened and cold, obsessive, having never given up that which he had claimed as his. At least, that was what the Other had told him.   
  
Had those words been true? Was there no place for him to hide, no one to turn to? Was Thor, was Odin, but a candle in comparison to the blaze of the harbinger of the looming threat of death? Could they do nothing? If so, what would become of him?   
  
Had the fates designed this? Was he meant to lose, to die?   
  
"What do you know?" the god whispered, his hand phasing through the glass. "Have you remained all this time? Have you come to kill me?" The creature did nothing, even as he slipped inside. "Was this all planned? Am I... so transparent that he knows my heart better than I?"   
  
Its head turned from the Avengers and back to him, its small eyes lighting up as it screeched.   
  
Loki grimaced, heard Thor shouting as he pounded on the glass. Clever bastard, he thought, and knew that he should have known better than to expect passive behavior from an obviously violent race of monsters. It seemed that the Chitauri were every bit as bad as the Jotunns. But what really rankled was that he, the God of Lies and Mischief, hadn't seen that familiar glint in its gaze beforehand; had allowed himself to be blind to the signs of his own craft. Again. God, he was becoming lousy at this.   
  
It was no wonder Natasha and the rest had ended up so battered. The Chitauri didn't need weapons to inflict damage. Only their hands, what with fingers drawing blood like daggers.   
  
So Loki rolled, kicked the thing in the chest and sent it staggering backwards against the glass, growling as he gripped crackling fire in his hands. It lunged, arms outstretched and reaching for him. One hand easily grazed the side of the god's face as he moved to the side, flinching and forcing one burst of flame through its center. It shrieked, filled the container with the sting of hot air and burning flesh and metal. His other hand came around full swing as the Chitauri dropped to the floor, the sparks blowing right through the top of its head just as Thor managed to get the damned door open.   
  
Just one more thing these bastards were good for: Making a bloody mess.  
  
"What the hell was that?!" Tony shouted, pushing past the thunder god, and grabbed Loki by the arm. "We don't even know where that thing came from, let alone if there were more of them around, and you went and  _killed it!"_  
  
Loki stepped back, growled and seriously considered lighting the Iron Man on fire as well. "Do not touch me."  
  
"What if there's another army?! Huh?! What're you gonna do about that?!"  
  
Silvertongue made a face as Thor began wiping the streak of blood off his face. The God of Thunder would, eventually, make quite the doting mother.   
  
"What do I care?" Loki sneered. "Your planet means nothing to me. What happens to it and to your people is none of my concern. Nor is it my problem."  
  
"Well, you should be held responsible!" Steve barked, and that was probably the first thing the soldier had said to him in all this time. "After all, this mess is all–"  
  
"My fault?! Yes, I know!" Loki turned, slammed a fist into the glass and managed to leave a web of small cracks. "I have known every second of every day, for years, that this is my fault! How can I forget, what with these bastards screaming in my skull?! How can I sleep... knowing that they will come for me...?"  
  
They all seemed to stop breathing then, stood like they were caught in a cinematic freeze frame and stared. It made Loki feel like he was in a goddamn fishbowl.   
  
Dammit, he was shaking, and it was not just the sort of strange trembling a man found brimming in his chest with unbridled excitement. This was terror, shock, the humiliation of having been found out. They were never supposed to know, had always been meant to believe that there was no being in all the Nine Realms with as much malice as he. He was Loki, the infamous spellcaster of Asgard, the false Son of Odin, of fair Frigga. The traitor, the liar, the thief. He had a reputation to uphold as a troublemaker, and it was all crumbling to dust now. And, if the Avengers knew, then it was only a matter of time before the rest of the cosmos ceased their trembling at his name. If anything, they would tremble with laughter.   
  
"...in Asgard," he heard Thor say, and looked up from the charred body on the floor. How long had he been staring at it? "The Tesseract remains safe with my father."  
  
Loki spat. Naturally.  
  
"Does this Thanos know that?" the Captain demanded, and moved around Thor to glare at him.   
  
He was certainly the most level-headed of the group, by far, but, Loki swore, that if the man so much as laid a hand upon him, he'd kill him. Stark wasn't afraid to hit an old man, as he'd said many times, and Loki would certainly have no qualms in stabbing one.   
  
"The Tesseract is here," Loki muttered, and avoided the thunderer's gaze. "So far as he knows..."  
  
"And he wants it?"  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"And, somehow," the soldier said with sarcasm, "all this comes around and points right back to you. Why?"  
  
Had they really not figured that out? Were SHIELD and the Avengers all so blind that they could not find a means with which to add two and two? This was no laughing matter, but the god just couldn't help snickering.   
  
"You should have all died quietly when I told you to," he said, and Thor shot him a warning glare. The idiot was ignored. "Like Agent Coulson." The group bristled. Too easy. "If you had, then this wouldn't be happening to you. Your people could, at the very least, live quiet, controlled lives, with no fear of the outlying darkness coming to swallow them whole."  
  
Stark made a face. "The hell does–"  
  
"Yes, you stopped me. Twice. An honest effort, but for nothing. If you had simply obeyed, left the Tesseract to me, if you hadn't stood in the way of my triumph... Thanos wouldn't be on his way to destroy us all."  
  
"Us?" Thor parroted.   
  
Loki feigned pity, as though his brother were a foolish child. "Poor thing," he said, and briskly patted Thor's cheek. "Thanos is not Odin. He is not kind, nor is he the slightest bit forgiving." Surely, the God of Thunder couldn't argue with those words for, so far as he was concerned, they were true. "You really don't understand, do you? He wanted the Tesseract, not I. After you cast me aside, he sent me here to retrieve it. Take it from the hands of the pitiful mortals. In return–"  
  
"You would be granted the Earth."  
  
"Smart boy." The god's expression fell, eyes glued to the body of the Chitauri warrior on the floor, and gave it a good kick. "This all could have been avoided a second time, you know. When I brought the Jotunns."  
  
"How?! How would killing innocent people have saved the Earth?!"  
  
"It would be mine!" Loki snapped, and wheeled around to shout at him. "I would have an army, a means with which to conquer the Nine Realms, take Asgard from the hands of that decrepit old fool! I could have been untouchable, free, Thor, with the people of the World Tree at my command! He would not dare to challenge me then!"  
  
The quick sound of heels echoed a moment, and Jane, surprisingly, reached out to slap him.   
  
"That's stupid, not to mention selfish! You have some nerve, coming here for help after all you've done!" Her face was bright red. "You act like this is all for our benefit, when your only real motivation for telling us anything is so you can turn around and kill us when you're done!"   
  
Loki should have killed her, had told himself that he'd bleed the next mortal who dared lay a hand upon him. But Thor wouldn't have it. His anger would get the better of him were the trickster to so much as pluck a hair from the woman's head, and he'd be killed or dragged back to Asgard while Thanos wrought his destruction. And, as the sky burned bright with Midgard's death, Loki knew he'd be waiting with bated breath in a cell for his turn to come.   
  
"Can you bring the cube back here?" Fury huffed.   
  
Thor nodded. "I will speak to my father at once," he said, and Loki felt himself being pulled across the floor.   
  
"What are you doing?!"  
  
"Come with me," Thor said. "We are going home."  
  
"Go by yourself! I don't need to see them!  _Any of them!_ "  
  
"You are coming!" came the biting remark. "Do you know just how much worry, how trouble, you have caused her?! Though it is certain you do not care enough to deserve it, she mourns for you!"  
  
What reason had Thor to lie? He was lousy with words, tripping over them more often than he did his own feet. In fact, time had proven again and again that he had no talent for it, no silver tongue as Loki had. And his eyes, though burning, held the inkling of truth, the images of the fair queen as she sat alone in her chambers, wondering if and when her liar son would return to her again. So, Loki decided, it would perhaps be best to relent than to argue with such a bull, and hope that his idiot brother could do just enough to stay Odin's hand.


	13. Plead For The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks" by Panic! At The Disco.

"You are making this very difficult, Brother!"

Thor paced across the room, dragging fingers through his hair and growling as he wracked his brain to find a solution. His brother had seemed to consider returning to Asgard at first, after their mother had been brought into the conversation, but had abruptly changed his mind before they'd reached the door. And now, the God of Thunder was seriously considering strangling Loki as soon as he could get his hands about the trickster's throat. But, before that could happen, Silvertongue would have to come out of his box. Literally.

He'd wormed out of Thor's grasp, stepped back into the cage and sealed it with magic, stating firmly that he would not be going anywhere. Particularly Asgard. Odin wasn't so sweet on him as he was on Thor, Loki had told him, and he had no interest in being made the victim of one of the Allfather's punishments.

It was infuriating that Loki was so foolish and blind, that he had maintained the mindset all these years that he was alone. Yes, he could rule out Sif and the Warriors Three as allies, had since before the brothers' war began, but could he really have forgotten everything else? The days spent running as wild boys across the palace grounds? The hours where they had lay on the library floor as their mother had read them stories? And what of the nights on Odin's knee, their eyes wide with excitement as he recounted his triumphs of the days before either of their Name Days? Thor would not, could not, lie. He would not say that the Allfather had been consistent in his handling of the two of them, or that he had been, in Thor's eyes, particularly fair. It had seemed, more than once, that the king had been more than willing to let Loki take the fall for the thunderer's mistakes, even when the mess of evidence insisted that it was all Thor's doing.

"That should be expected," Loki quipped, and Thor turned from his reverie. "I am the problem child, after all."

Groaning, Thor slammed a hand against the barrier, it felt very much like glass, and exhaled. "Stop saying that," he muttered. "It isn't true!"

"Are you going to make me?"

What had happened here? They had been more than friends, more than brothers, once. So close to one another that, for Thor at least, it had been as though his brother's pain were his own, only magnified. Though he would often be praised, he would still cringe under the weight of his father's glare even as it fell upon Loki, feel as though he were the one being punished or berated for whatever trick or falsehood the Allfather had caught his brother in. It really should have been him, he thought. He should have said something, said more, even when commanded to hold his tongue. At the very least, it would have served to make Loki think that they were both detested by Odin. Perhaps he wouldn't have kept on like this, kept on acting out, acting alone.

The hammer thrummed through the room as it flew from the floor, landed solid and heavy in Thor's hand. He didn't like it anymore, the feel of Mjolnir against his hip, beneath his fingers. His father had called it a great weapon, a tool unlike any other with which to build or to destroy. An eternal companion for the young God of Thunder. That thought made Thor feel ill, looking from the hammer to Loki, noting how his brother eyed the thing. He'd worn that same look on the morning that Odin had presented it to him, on the night of his grand celebration. That just made Thor feel worse. He'd always had Odin's love, his recognition. Why had the Allfather seen fit to give him this burden as well? Why hadn't his brother, with all his talent in the ancient craft, been recognized instead?

He bit his lip, wanted to ask why Loki wouldn't say anything, wouldn't let him in. But it would be a stupid question. His brother had always been rather self-sufficient, hating to rely upon others for even the smallest of things, save their mother, and even that lingering bit of dependency on her had waned as the years had wore on. Why, it seemed he'd come to even resent her now, see her as little more than but the wife and right hand of Odin. He probably thought that she'd turn him away were he to show up in Asgard. Thor, of course, knew otherwise. But Loki had never been one to listen to him.

Thor raised the hammer, and his brother's eyes went wide.

"Don't." A deep breath as he brought his arm forward. "I mean it, Thor! Don't you–"

The barrier splintered with the impact then, the shards shining bright and dissolving into fine silver dust that fell in a ring across the room. Loki groaned, threw his head back against the glass of the cage and glowered at him. Thor knew what was coming. Another lecture on how he didn't listen to a damn thing he was told, how he had no respect for boundaries, and so on and so forth.

The god didn't care about that, though. He marched into the cage, dropping the hammer as he went, leaning backwards just as Loki sent a dagger flying his way. It barely grazed the tip of Thor's nose.

"Enough!" he roared, and grabbed his brother by the shoulder and bashed their heads together with a loud crack. Loki teetered, fell back and onto the floor. Thor knelt beside him. He was going to hear about that later. About the headache. "I am not going to fight you!" Loki blinked and groaned, stared at Thor. "I am taking you home..."

"Why?" came the whisper as Thor pulled him to his feet. "Why would you–"

"You are my brother," Thor said, and wondered if this was how Loki had always felt in their youth, telling him the same thing a thousand times over and knowing that he wouldn't listen. "You have people in Asgard who love you.  _Our mother._ "

His heart sank as Loki smiled, almost sadly. "I never knew my mother, Thor."

**# - # - # - #**

He shouldn't have picked up, should have known that she was the one calling him from the start. But he had, and she stood on the corner and stared across the street at nothing, her mind blank and not a word on her tongue. Why had she called him again?

They were supposed to be ignoring each other, not listening to one another breathe through a phone call that probably went straight across town. But Natasha wondered if he could see her now, if he were up on one of the buildings within even three blocks of her, staring down with binoculars or those piercing eagle eyes of his. That would be so like him.

"You knew," he said suddenly, and the assassin had to sift through her brain to figure out what he was talking about. It didn't take long, though, for they had only just been in the same room with one another an hour before, refusing to pay the other any mind as the peaceful world that they had known for a scant amount of time tumbled back into chaos. "Didn't you?"

Of course she had, and had kept it to herself. Funny, to know that she'd been keeping her mouth shut for the sake of a man, a stuck up and arrogant piece of work, who thought himself far and above them, thought himself fit to rule the Earth and the rest of the Nine Realms. Protecting the secret that wasn't so much a secret anymore: The fact that Loki was really a blueberry Popsicle. That made the assassin smile. He probably wouldn't have thought it too humorous were she to mention it to him the next time they met.

"Nat?"

She didn't know what to say, if she was supposed to say anything at all. It was hard enough to play by SHIELD's rules, drift in and out of the country for days, if not weeks on end, living what some people would say was a lie. Undercover and with a completely different persona, a different air about her. On top of that was the scant amount of work with the Avengers and the recurring pain in their collective ass. Expecting her to deal with Clint and his baggage too, was like asking her to explain to the class, in depth, the primary cultural differences between Frost and Fire Giants.

"You're on lookout," she said. "Fury's orders. You see any more of those things, you call in or you–"

"Why won't you just tell me?"

Natasha groaned, rolled her eyes. "You're asking about us," she replied. "Me and you, and me and... him." God, that sounded weird coming out of her mouth. "That has nothing to do with anything that's going on right now, Clint. We're facing another potential invasion. One that's probably going to be worse than the last two. Maybe even on a worldwide scale!"

"So–"

"So get your head out of the bedroom, and focus! What happened, or did  _not_  happen, has nothing to do with any of this!" Clint sighed. "Yes, I knew! I've known what he is for three years, and, no, I didn't tell anyone! It was nobody's business; it wasn't relevant!"

"Not relevant?! He's one of those monsters, and you were protecting him!" the archer shouted back through the phone, and Natasha felt the crackling of static in her ear. "Tell me that doesn't mean something!"

There was a pause, the only sound between them Clint's shuddering breaths. Natasha drew one of her own, pursed her lips a moment, and sighed. She didn't particularly like the god, but she didn't not like him either. Which was what Clint wanted her to say. That she couldn't stand him any more than the archer could.

"I can't."

Natasha grimaced, and dead space buzzed in her ear.

_Well, shit..._

**# - # - # - #**

It was strange, being caught up in the scent of leather and the feel of metal after having avoided it for so long. It felt rather foreign, and Loki cursed himself for ever having allowed himself to become accustomed to mortal dressings. But, of course, being decked out in Asgardian armor would, assuming they had been following him, have allowed the Chitauri to locate him far sooner. That, and he didn't need to be subjected to a hundred questions about how San Diego Comic Con was and who he'd dressed as, which he still didn't understand. Why did mortals need to make such a big deal about trite things like cinema and comic books? Such things likely only served to further inflate the egos of those who were made spectacle, such as the not-so-charming Tony Stark. Even Thor, it seemed, would get a big head when children crowded around him on the street.

Of course, none of that mattered now. What occupied Loki's mind at present was why the two of them were standing atop the SHIELD building, and why Thor was howling at the sky when the Bifrost was clearly still broken. Idiot.

"Heimdall, open the Bifrost!"

Loki clapped his hands over his ears and growled, "Shut up, Thor. Even if he can hear you, it's no use. The bridge is still broken..."

Splintered into tiny pieces when he'd last seen it. A grim thought, considering the last time Loki had been on the Bifrost was when Thor had dropped him, sent him flying right into Thanos' realm. The netherworld couldn't have possibly compared to that sort of misery, being found and stripped of his shell, having something else forced into his head. In those days, trapped in overwhelming darkness, it had been all about the Tesseract, not escaping, not finding Thor or bringing Odin to his knees. Perhaps it had been shoved into the background, or perhaps he hadn't dared to think on those things, what with the Other lingering over his shoulder, playing teacher, instructing him in how to lead the Chitauri.

By Yggdrasil, Loki wished he could forget, sleep well for but a single night and not wake panicked and shot through with chills.

"It would be easier," he muttered, and played at drawing little pictures on the air with light. Just pull at the corners, he thought, and it would open up, like dragging a knife through silk. Probably not the best idea, to show Thor his little trick, his pathways, but perhaps he could dupe the thunderer into following, push him on through to Asgard and disappear himself. "...to just do it my way. Faster. And less..."

He'd had dreams before, about moving through the Bifrost again, feeling as though his stomach were being turned inside out as he hurtled through space. His knees would hit solid ground and Loki would fall, exhausted and ridiculously ill, trying to find his bearings again. Fortunately, there was no chance of that happening now. Not with the bridge broken and floating among the stars.

"...nauseating."

The god's eyes nearly popped out of his head as Thor's arm secured itself across his chest, the hammer held high in his other hand as the wind began to blow, the clouds spiraling towards them in a thick pillar. Apparently, he'd been mistaken about the Rainbow Bridge. It would seem that, since his idiot brother had seen fit to save Jotunheim from his wrath, and drag him back from the frozen wasteland, the Aesir had managed to put the blasted thing back together. Loki squirmed, perfectly willing to bargain, for the moment, with Thor. Insist that, if the thunderer didn't take him back through that godawful portal, he wouldn't dare to run off. For now. But that would remain as subtext.

 _"Thor!"_  he shouted, but the God of Thunder said nothing, shot up into the clouds and pulled him right along.

It was shocking, seeing light so bright and colored dancing before his eyes, leaving him feeling weightless, empty, as the cosmos seemed to suck him upward into the spiral. The journey felt far longer than it should have, longer than it ever had, and when the brothers were finally deposited on the solid end of the Bifrost, it wasn't the towering palace and glittering buildings of Asgard that greeted Loki, but multiple images of Thor's curious face and the inside of his own damned eyelids.

There came a sharp thump on the side of his head then, and Loki rolled onto his knees, groaning as Thor laughed.

"Come now. It wasn't that bad."

The God of Mischief would beg to differ. It felt as though he'd been whacked, hard, in the chest with that damned hammer. And, as Loki could honestly attest, that wasn't a pleasant feeling in the slightest.

The nausea was not forgotten as Thor pulled him up, and Loki blinked, tried to focus on the bright entrance to the golden sphere in hopes that he wouldn't keel over and vomit. There was a figure, he noted, draped in gold and appearing to shine. Probably Heimdall, he thought, prepared to refuse him passage into the royal city. That would be fine with him. Why, if the Gatekeeper was so intent on keeping him out, he'd disappear, find means with which to stay far away from Thanos' grasp. Except that there wasn't another way. This was it. The Avengers, Thor... and Asgard.

Loki flinched, thought his knees might buckle as Thor stood him up and let him go, pushed him into the figure that rushed forward, pulled him into waiting arms. It had a name, he remembered. A name he hadn't dared to utter except in passing. She smelled of warmth, of leather, of protection, of safety. Of home. And Loki couldn't help but to shut his eyes, let her cradle him the way he had thought that she never would again.

_"Mother."_


	14. Son Of Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Mercenary" by Panic! At The Disco.

"You want me to do what now?"

The chair promptly stopped spinning as Tony reached for the table and anchored himself to it. If Bruce and Steve had to carry him out of the room, then so be it. He was not going to go along with Fury's batshit insane ideas. Particularly those that involved him suiting up and investigating the sewers beneath the streets of New York. Not only was that absolutely filthy, not to mention the fact that he'd smell for days afterward, but there were miles of tunnels, which meant gallons upon gallons of waste.

He gripped the edge of the table even tighter and continued to glower at Fury, ignoring the glances and snickers of the others as they mocked him. He was Tony Stark, for God's sake. Not a plumber, not a waste technician, or whatever the hell they were called. He, the infamous playboy of Malibu and worldwide billionaire extraordinaire was not about to be called upon to search through the city's shit in hopes of finding a wayward Chitauri alien or two.

Why, if the royal pain in the ass hadn't killed the one that Thor had found, then he wouldn't be having this problem. Tony cursed the god and his own miserable fortune.

"You  _were_  the one openly complaining when Loki offed the thing," Bruce said, and the Iron Man could have sworn that, between fleeting glances, the scientist was mocking him. "It's only fitting that you be the one to investigate. Well, and you do have the super cool suit."

Tony made a face at the man and scoffed. "Or we could have you turn into the Not-So-Jolly Green Giant and tear open the sewage plant. That'd save us a lot of trouble." A shrug. "And by 'us,' I mean 'me.'"

"You're doing it," Fury snapped, and the billionaire's head turned to the door as it opened and Pepper walked in carrying a bag, that did not contain their bouncing bundle of drooling joy, in her hands. "Now."

His jaw dropped and he played at betrayal as she tossed the thing across the room. It landed in his lap with a heavy sound, and Tony cringed. "My suit?! You found my suit?! How?! I... I–"

Pepper crossed her arms, smiled the way that she always did, the smile that just did things to him, and sighed happily. "You just aren't very good at hiding things, Tony. At least, not anymore."

Biting the inside of his lower lip, Tony frowned, knew exactly what she meant. He'd done a shitty job of keeping secrets from her after that lovely little three months in the desert, and had failed in nearly every attempt since. It seemed that, after his return, he'd decided to glue himself to her hip, so to speak. Not a wonder that now, all these years later, Pepper knew just how his mind worked. Like one of the brilliant folks who had figured out the Rubik's cube in under fifteen minutes.

Granted, his idea to hide the Mark VII suit in the dryer before the meeting, having correctly assumed that Fury would send him to do some sort of dirty work, probably hadn't been his best one to date.

"Better suit up, Stark," the director said, and Tony couldn't believe that there was genuine amusement in the man's voice. "You're going swimming."

**# - # - # - #**

Surreal. Among all the words in his extensive vocabulary, some of which were colorful phrases, that was the only one that Loki felt was suitable enough for the situation. The rooms were wider than he remembered, the ceilings higher, the great archways of the windows more open. The light was blinding, the heat of an Asgardian summer nothing short of suffocating. Loki wouldn't have been bothered in the slightest were he to have been left to sit alone in a cold, dark little cell. It certainly would have been preferable to being seated in the great hall, forced to watch as servants whispered to one another and paraded a ridiculously lavish meal before the three of them. The only upside to all of this was that Odin had not dared to show his face.

He leaned forward, shoved the plate away and rested his chin on the table. This didn't make any damn sense. Who, in their right mind, would have welcomed home a traitor, a murderer, say that he had been missed and sweep him away to the sort of quiet celebration he had always preferred? She must have lost it in the time he'd been away, he thought, and spared Frigga a passing glance. Her eyes were shining again, the way that they had when he'd kept her occupied for hours on end just to prove that he'd mastered his first book of spells. With every word out of his mouth, the queen had seemed to glow brighter, until he thought that she'd outmatched the sun entirely.

Thor, quite naturally, was thrilled by the fact that he was being fed, and, for a moment, Loki nearly mistook him for the lumbering Volstagg. He scowled at the thought, hoping with everything that he wouldn't come across Sif and the Warriors Three. Their last few encounters had been anything but pleasant. Particularly that little scuffle in the crumbling temple of Jotunheim. Dear Sif had not been kind enough to control her temper, stay her blade, eager for his blood. He had the scar to prove it.

"Are you not well?"

Stunned, Loki sat upright, turned his head and stared at her. Why did that matter? Why was she doing this? Was it all some kind of game? Had she been sent by Odin to lull him into a false sense of security? Would the Allfather come for him once he dropped his guard, kill him?

The legs of the chair scraped hard against the floor, the thing falling back with a loud sound as he moved away and towards the window, breath caught in his throat. It was a good long drop from here, straight onto the stone of the palace grounds, the gardens. He could jump, tear a hole in space and drift away into the Tree, escape Odin's grasp, his fury, his punishments. Escape his lies. As the God of Mischief, a king among insects, he would not be bested again by an old man awaiting death.

But what of Thanos, the Chitauri? What if he fled Asgard, ran into them? They would not be quite so kind as they had been the first time, and that wasn't saying much. They'd been horrible, monstrous, kept him in the dark that, at one point, he had come to fully embrace. But in those long months, being pulled out of his skin and forced back inside again, the darkness had come to frighten him, and how he had longed for light, to feel the blaze of the sun, see the blue of the sky. Where had she been, he'd wondered? Sitting within the warm comforts of the palace, no doubt. And why, why hadn't she come?

Her touch was like fire, cutting through skin and melting the ice in his veins. The queen was gentle, the personification of perfection, and it was like a poison to him, drowning in darkness as he was. He couldn't think straight, couldn't even see her. There was only the phantom, that of his nightmares, the one that had washed away the woman's face, stolen her voice, her body, tried to wrap those lithe fingers of hers about his throat. So he turned, and, in a second, lashed out, felt himself flying, falling, wondering where in Asgard the breath in his lungs had run off to.

The sudden ringing in his ears was Thor yelling at him from above, the ceilings looking higher than the moon behind his head. She just stood there, over the thunderer's shoulder, a hand pressed to a gently forming red mark upon her cheek. Had he just done that?

"Answer me!" Thor bellowed, and gripped him by the arms, pressed him hard into the wall. He must have knocked the table over in his anger, Loki thought, for the thing was lying on its side, everything scattered across the floor as the servants hurried about. The thunderer shook him, and Loki grit his teeth. "Now!"

This was just not happening. They were really in his head now, running everything, driving him far and beyond mad. None of this was funny. It was downright terrifying, but he couldn't help finding this incredibly humorous. Thor, on the other hand, did not, and made sure to prove it by socking Loki right in the mouth.

"That... won't help you..." His head lolled, hit Thor's shoulder. "They...  _are_  coming. First Midgard, and then–"

"You could have stopped it! You could have said something sooner! We could have fought them together! We can–"

"They are all going to die anyway!" Loki snarled, and slapped his brother's hands away, pulled the other's legs out from beneath him with a boot, shoved him to the floor. "All of them! And why should I try to stop it?! They are only mortal! They mean  _nothing!_  We are  _gods,_  Brother! But that does not make us heroes..."

"Because this is your responsibility!" Thor shot back. " _Midgard_  is your responsibility!  _You_  brought this madness upon them! Upon all of us! Upon  _yourself!"_

It was just a planet of dirt, of fools. Of self-obsessed mortals with nothing to live for. Why should Thor care what happened to them? Of the billions of people in existence, he should have had reason to save but the handful that had wormed their way into his affection. Jane Foster, the Avengers. His friends. The rest of them should have been disposable.

Loki made a face of disbelief. He didn't feel the ice harden in his hand. "Would you really die for them?"

"This is not about them. But you. I would die for  _you._ "

It wasn't supposed to be this way. He wasn't supposed to win their hearts, have their forgiveness. They were supposed to shun him, treat him as the devil, the shadow on the floor. To vanquish him with light, watch as he faded into nothing amid the brightness of the sun. He was no prince of Asgard, no Son of Odin, of Frigga, but a traitor. He wasn't supposed to be welcomed home as the lost boy, the prodigal son.

Loki scoffed. It must have been a trick.

"Stop lying to me, Thor. Have you forgotten?" He leaned in with a smile, venom on his tongue. Or perhaps it was blood. "I am the God of  _Lies._  And you dare to think, for but a moment, that you can fool me?"

He would have struck Thor down, fulfilled that violent thought that had played in his head again and again through the years. But she caught him by the arm, twisted the ice from his hand, and pulled the two of them apart. Thor skidded even further across the floor, and Loki fell back into her waiting arms. He'd forgotten that she wasn't just a woman, a mother, but the warrior queen of Asgard. She'd held her own against Laufey and the Frost Giants. He'd been foolish to think that she couldn't stop their quarreling as well.

"Who is coming?"

Loki did not want to say. "It matters not where I hide," he whispered, and felt Frigga's hand cool against his cheek. "He will find me."

"Who would harm my boy?" she said, and turned him around.

His eyes could only trace the pattern of the fine golden thread of her gown, and Loki grit his teeth. "I failed..."

Her hand moved beneath his chin, and, for the first time in year the god sincerely looked at her.  _"Who?"_

"Don't let them take me," he breathed, and the shadows untamed by the queen's stories were darting about his chambers again, trying to whisk him away.  _"Please..."_

**# - # - # - #**

"Oh,  _God_  this is disgusting..." Tony groaned, and shoved his head back through to the surface. He crossed his arms. Not even three seconds breathing sewer air through his mask, and the man had a sudden urge to ditch the suit and vomit on the sidewalk. "No. There is no way in hell I'm looking through that place. I don't wanna smell like..." Flipping up the mask, he made a face and motioned towards Steve. " _...ass._ "

The Captain furrowed his brow, turned to look at the others as they snickered. "Did... Did he say just say that  _I'm_  an ass, or that I smell like–"

"Just do it," Natasha said, looking distant and ignoring the coffee in her hand. It had since stopped steaming, and she hadn't taken a drink since they'd all met up fifteen minutes earlier. Which, in Tony's mind, was a great big, flashing sign that insisted something had gotten screwed up between her and the archer. Who, as everyone had surely noticed, hadn't been around since Thor had broken into the freezer aisle for his brother the ice cube. "You can give yourself a chemical bath in the lab later."

The billionaire sighed and leaned forward against the concrete, still lingering on the ladder that would drop him into the sewer. "So, what? I'm just supposed to crank up Alice In Chains and suck it all up?"

They just stared at him. That was the only downside to being in his forties. Nobody understood references to excellent music anymore. Hell, all the kids were about Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift these days. It was only thanks to dumbass games like Guitar Hero that anybody of the present generation still knew how to sing the chorus to The Rolling Stone's "Paint It Black."

Now burdened with that disappointment, Tony groaned again and flipped the mask back over his face and held his breath as the eyes lit up. He was going to kill them all for this later on.

"Have fun!" Bruce laughed, and Tony threw him the finger.

"You guys owe me!" the Iron Man shouted back as Steve dropped the manhole cover back over the top of the ladder.

Tony had never been more pleased with his intellect, with having developed rocket boots for the suit, for he found that he could actually hover just above the filth that lined the tunnel before him. The arclight whirred and lit the dark space like a Christmas tree in a toy shop window as he went, the display in the eyes of the mask rather dull as there was nothing of interest, save for a bit of faded graffiti on one of the walls, for him to focus on. Must have been part of a dare, he thought, to come down into this shithole just to spray paint a load of bull on the tunnel.

"Sir," Jarvis quipped, and Tony found the volume of his music dropping drastically. "I'm picking up a mass collection of vital signs twenty meters to the East."

Turning, Tony frowned, noting that the tunnel, so far as he'd seen, only went straight. The hands of the suit scraped against the wall as the display changed to look through what must have been at least three feet of solid concrete. Illuminated in blue, a distant figure ran down a maze of corridors, sending waste sloshing up the walls on the opposite side, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the billionaire was poking around.

"Well," he sighed, "at least it'll be interesting now. Jarvis, lead the way."

Dimming the lights, Tony began playing through scenarios in his head, hoping that the least exciting of them would be what was true. The first thought had been what they were all afraid of: An army of screeching metal aliens hiding out in the underbelly of New York. But, the more he mulled it over in his head, completely lost in Lala Land as Jarvis directed the suit through the maze, the more Tony came to believe that it was just one of a bunch of dumbass kids sluffing school.

Eventually, his music faded out entirely, and Tony found himself standing on a metal grate before a door with the typical "Authorized Personnel Only" label slapped upon it in big black letters. The handle was wet and the door ajar, he noted, and grimaced, sincerely thankful that he wasn't going to be touching it with his bare hands. Tapping it with an elbow, it opened slowly, the first room of the underground sewage plant dark and filled with the sound of humming machinery.

"Stark! Did you find anything?" Steve said into his headset, and Tony jumped.

"Oh, God!" he breathed. "You scared the piss out of me!"

He could almost see the disgusted look on the Captain's face. At least that was one victory for the day.

"Yeah, that's great... Now, what did you find?"

Tony shrugged, moving the arclight's beam across the room as he walked. And then he remembered: they could only hear him. "Not much. Just a maze of rank tunnels and a door to the treatment plant. There was a guy down here, but–"

"A guy? What kind of–"

"Well, if you'd let me finish..." Tony cleared his throat, and the Captain said nothing. "There's a fair bit of graffiti down in the tunnels, Cap. Probably just some lousy punk trying to lead us on. And I'm not picking up any readings aside from rats, so–"

"Sir?"

God, not Jarvis, too. Why did everyone love interrupting him so much?

"Not now, Jarvis. Anyway, Cap, I'm coming back–"

"Sir?"

"What in the name of God is it, Jarvis?! Can't you see that I'm trying to–"

The words that would have come out of Tony's mouth were cut off as he flew forward, slammed hard into one of the pipes that hovered on the far end of the room. The headset blared with the sound of Steve's voice as he barked orders, told the others that they had to get to the damned plant immediately. Tony groaned, the display in the mask flashing with a damage report and warning of an attacker. Apparently, whoever had hit him had not only scraped paint off his suit, but had caused him to crack the arclight in his chest. Great. Pepper was going to have a bloody heart attack.

"Okay, you little shit," he muttered, and the boots pushed him up into the air. "As if hide-and-seek-tag through the sewers wasn't bad enough, now you've really gone and pissed me off."

Sure enough, the asshole who'd whacked him was a kid, a boy, in a dark hoodie. He couldn't have been older than fifteen. And, of course, he held in his hand a length of rusted pipe that only made Tony angrier. This was one of the reasons he couldn't stand kids for extended periods of time. They stopped being cute and chubby after a while, and thought they owned the fucking world.

"I really should pound the snot out of you," he said, and gave little thought to the fact that, for threatening a minor, he could end up in a mess of a lawsuit. But he had money and lawyers for that kind of thing, thank God. Tony motioned to the boy, flipped the mask up. "Show me your face, kid."

There was no answer, even as the boy moved the pipe from one hand to the other, swaying from side to side as though this were some kind of bitchin' dance party.

"Come on, kid," Tony said again, and moved towards him, taking the hood in a hand. "Show me your damn face."

He pulled, felt his heart slam against the metal of the suit as it threatened to jump out of his chest. The boy, it seemed, was not a boy at all, but one of those fucking aliens. Tony stumbled back as the thing shredded its clothing and whacked him again with the pipe. He hit the ground hard, eyes wide as the Chitauri lunged at him, brought the pipe down towards his head just as Tony snapped the mask shut over his face again. It screeched, and Tony raised a hand, blasted it right in the chest and sent it flying back across the room. Where the hell were Steve and the others when he freaking needed them? Now, he thought as he flew up in an arc, would be a great time for the Captain to show up and bash the bastard with his ridiculous shield.

It followed Tony about the room, tried to drop him as it raised the pipe in an attempt to stab him. At one point, the end of the object caught the arclight, broke right through the glass and sent it scattering across the floor. Swearing under his breath, Tony shot to one corner of the room and raised both his hands to the beast, the suit whirring as the little rockets began to pop out of their hiding places.

"Eat this you, sonofa–"

Gunshots rang out as Natasha appeared at the top of the stairwell, firing shot after shot into the Chitauri's head. When it turned, the Captain's shield came out from behind her, taking its legs out and sending it to the floor in a writhing heap. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and dropped, let himself fall back against the wall as the assassin jumped over the railing and pinned the thing down.

"Everything good in here?" Bruce quipped, sticking his head around the corner of the doorway. Good call, waiting until all the shit had hit the fan. Wouldn't be such a hot idea for the green rage monster to come out of his shell inside a sewage treatment plant.

Tony groaned loudly in response. "What the hell... took you guys so damn long...?"

"You cut off the connection!" Steve snapped. "How were we supposed to know where you ended up?! Or if you weren't dead?!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Tony muttered sarcastically, still trying to catch his breath. It was like dropping out of the sky all over again. "I didn't ask to be whacked in the head with a goddamn pipe!"

The Captain fell silent and Natasha kept murmuring to herself, a distinct snapping sound coming from her as she fastened handcuffs to the Chitauri's wrists. If he'd been feeling up to it, Tony would have made a comment about how the metal guy really liked to play rough.

"Director," Steve said into his headset, "we've got him. Looks like Stark was right. We found another one."

Tony whined as Bruce came to pull him to his feet. Fury was probably going to make them scour the underside of the entire city now. "We're not gonna sleep tonight, are we?"

The scientist gave him a wry smile and clapped him on the shoulder. "Not a chance."


	15. The Tainted Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Time To Dance" by Panic! At The Disco.

Bradley cooed, squirmed on the blanket on the floor as he stared up at the television which played a colorful video with song. He squealed, scrunched up his little face and grabbed hold of his plush rattle, a giraffe, stuffed one of its feet into his mouth and chewed. Though Pepper had sat behind him with the phone to her ear for nearly fifteen minutes, waiting for someone at SHIELD to take her off hold so she could talk to Tony, who had not been answering his cell, she couldn't force herself to be completely angry. Not with her baby now falling back against her leg and staring up at her with wide eyes and a smile.

He was perfect, everything she'd ever wanted, but the events that had transpired over the past several days had made her feel uneasy. It bothered her more than anything that the God of Mischief had taken a liking to her son, and that Bradley had been more than happy to find refuge in his arms in turn. On top of that was Tony's attitude towards their baby. He behaved as though their son were a pain, an irritant, a bother to be around and to take care of. It seemed that he cared more about looking the part of the hotshot billionaire and hero than about being a real father. Pepper bit her lip, thinking that, maybe, his muted hostility had something to do with Howard Stark.

"Hello?" Tony yawned into the phone, and she sat up straight.

"Tony?" she said hurriedly, and Bradley grabbed at her shirt with wide eyes. Maybe he knew that she was talking to his Daddy. How cute. "Tony, thank God, are you all right? What happened?"

He sighed, sounded a little drunk as he spoke. "Yeah... Well, if you consider smelling like sewer water and being hit in the head with a pipe by an alien 'all right,' then, yeah, I'm fine."

"You were hit in the head?!" She stopped. "Wait. Back up. You found another one of those things?"

"Mm-hmm. And it nearly broke the arclight, so I'll be back at the tower in, oh, about fifteen minutes for repairs and cocktails with Rhodey. Assuming we ever get through this damn traffic." Pepper could easily hear the bustling of people outside as Tony rolled down the window and shouted, "Hey! Move your truck, asshole!" before groaning and probably flopping back against the seat of the car. "Sorry about that. Some moron thought it'd be a good idea to–"

So there were more of those things. Of the Chitauri. Positioning the phone between her cheek and shoulder, Pepper leaned across the patterned blanket to grab Bradley, pulling a bottle off the table as he began to squirm in protest at being picked up. Cradling him in her arms, he took to drinking his formula with a quiet sound of contentment, and Pepper pressed her lips to his soft little head. From what little she was hearing from Tony, it seemed that there might be a small colony living under the city, and even being thirty floors up in a beautiful, custom-made Manhattan penthouse, she still didn't feel safe. She still didn't feel that she could protect her baby.

"I'm sorry," Tony muttered. "I... I didn't mean to scare you."

Shrugging, Pepper leaned back against the sofa and stared blankly at the television screen. "That's not the only thing that scares me, Tony..."

"Well, then what–"

"If you didn't want a baby, why did you say yes?"

Pepper loved that memory. Skating awkwardly across the ice as she watched the kids crowd around him, knock Tony down and tell him to fly the way he did as Iron Man. She loved seeing him smile around them, each one wanting their hero's attention. Then she'd asked him, one night when they were all alone, doing nothing, ignoring the obnoxious newscaster on the screen in their hotel suite. He had said that if she wanted kids, he wouldn't object. But had he only said that to make her happy, or because he had wanted them too?

"What are you talking about?"

In her arms, Bradley was fast asleep, the sides of the bottle still held between his tiny hands as it dropped onto his little chest. She pulled it away, replaced it with a pacifier, and rocked him back and forth.

"You don't play with him, you don't want to hold him. It's as though you don't even like him.  _Our baby._  Our little miracle..."

"You know," he replied swiftly, with growing tension in his tone, "I didn't exactly have a great role model, Pepper. I... I don't know how to be a parent." A short laugh. "I've been a kid for forty years. But I want to. I want to be better than... you know. Sure, I've spent my whole life at the top of the food chain, doing whatever the hell I want. But I want my kid to have more than that. I... want to be the dad that I didn't get to have..."

"Then come home," Pepper told him. She smiled. "Get your ass back here, and put your baby to bed."

"What, no cocktails?"

_"Tony."_

"Okay, okay." She could almost see him raising his hands in mock surrender. "Baby first... then cocktails."

**# - # - # - #**

He was three feet tall again, and Thor only stood but a smidge higher. Even from the opposite end of the palace, up stairs and through heavy, gilded doors, she could hear him crying, and she would run, sweep through the halls like a hurricane, hurry into his room and find him hiding beneath the blankets or behind the silken curtains. She would pull the fabric away, look at him, always afraid that he'd be hurt, not crying because of nightmares or shadows on the wall. But it was always the same. His hair fuzzy and matted in places from where he had lay on the pillow, wailing and clinging to her gown as soon as she came close enough for him to reach. And she would welcome him into her arms, pull him into love and usher away her husband's echoing words.

_"You coddle him."_

He must have thought it unsightly for a prince of Asgard, a child, to hold to his mother's arm and cry through his first three, maybe even four, decades. Frigga had argued with him time and again, had even accused Odin, told him that he did not love their son the way she did. Eventually, the Allfather had learned to hold his tongue with her, refused to discuss the matter entirely and, ironically, had kept on encouraging Thor. To the queen, that had been the greatest hypocrisy.

It was a crushing blow to her now, watching him as he moved fluidly about the room, as if investigating to ensure that everything was as he had left it. How strange he was now. Not at all the boy she so fondly remembered. Loki had not said a word to her after she'd ushered him out of the great hall, took to showing him the minute changes that had been made about the palace. New flowers, those that she had planted in the spring, and even the fish and the birds that had remained in the gardens, the ones that he'd made for her. Whether or not he was bored, Frigga couldn't tell, not with that same paranoid expression on his face for the whole of the day. He hadn't touched her, hadn't made any effort to be close to her, save for the moments in which something sounded from behind. Only then would Loki draw breath loud enough for her to hear, grab her by the sleeve and turn to look over his shoulder. The sounds would be silly things, the sort that one heard and paid no mind to each day. The echo of the servant girls' shoes against the floor, the opening and closing of a door, the crackling of flame. Each one seemed to scare him right out of his mind, his skin. But once it was clear that there was no danger, he would breathe easy and isolate himself inside his head all over again.

The mattress sank a bit as he finally sat, seemingly satisfied that everything was well, and fell back, a listless look in his blue eyes which, by now, Frigga would swear were more gray and faded than anything else. She leaned over, one arm positioned against the furs with which to hold herself up, the other in the loose ends of his hair.

"Are you tired?" she whispered. "You should–"

"Where is the Tesseract?"

The queen shook her head. They would not be having any talk of ancient weapons or war or death. So she said nothing, wished he were still light enough for her to pull into her lap, drape him in warmth, in safety, tell him that there was no real evil in the world, and that there were happy endings. Stories. Fairy tales. Lies, as he would now call them.

"Does...  _he_  have it?"

Frigga drew in a breath and sighed. " _He_  has a name, Loki."

The god spat, sat up and out of reach. "What, you mean 'Father?' No. No, my father is dead. I killed him myself, in Odin's chambers." He turned, pleading with his glazed eyes for her to understand his flawed and broken logic. She couldn't. "For you. For all of us."

"I know," the queen said softly, and moved touch his hand. "I know. But you went about it all wrong."

"Again!" Loki shouted, and pulled away, drifted across the room like a leaf in the wind. "Again you side with him! Again you all seek opportunity to tell me that I am wrong! To tell me that I have not the nerve to do what any other man might have!"

"I am not siding with your father, Loki. But–"

He squeezed his eyes shut, ran hands through his hair and, for a moment, Frigga thought it might come out in his fingers, fall to the floor like damaged feathers.

"Stop... Stop calling him that...  _Stop lying to me!_  He is not my father! He told me himself! And... And as soon as I needed him, needed answers that only he could provide, he slipped away!" From across the room, Loki stared at her, looking distant and broken the way he had as a child. In the nights she would come for him, come to save him from his nightmares, perhaps slivers of visions of the future, he would beg her not to let go. Plead with her to keep the shadows away, to not let them take him. As he had only hours before. "You weren't there... You didn't see how he looked at me. A disappointment. A betrayal.  _A shadow._  My  _brother's_  shadow! And Thor... Oh, you should have seen it. He let me go. Did you know that...?"

That, she knew, was not true. Thor had mourned for months after his brother's disappearance, had been greatly reluctant to do anything but linger on the broken edge of the Bifrost with the Gatekeeper. Frigga had imagined that, besides inquiring after Jane, he had asked Heimdall time and again if Loki had survived the fall, if he had seen any sign of him. And, each evening, when he had returned to the palace, Thor had worn that same crestfallen look, and retired straight to bed. How he had lit up when news had reached them that Loki had arrived on Midgard.

"Loki..."

"Now, because of him, because he came back, they are hunting me! And they will not stop until they have found me... and the Tesseract... All because he let go, and he, and those damned ants, couldn't leave well enough alone..."

Frigga could only stare in disbelief. He had kept her in the dark for years, had refused to open up, to tell her anything that he deemed to be a secret. The queen sighed, Loki's fingers curling into the curtain. What could she say to convince him otherwise? Nothing, his eyes said, and she was left in the silence of her mind, the sound of her own beating heart as company. Perhaps it mirrored his own.

When the doors opened, the queen hadn't time to turn fully around before a streak of color passed her by, glued itself to Loki, and sent the both of them bumping into the wall and falling to the floor. With the way she was crying, shuddering and holding onto him, Sigyn seemed more a girl than a grown woman. He was stiff, unsure as to whether or not he was supposed to shove her away. Frigga looked back to the doors, saw Thor standing in the hallway with an apologetic look on his face. He'd tried to distract her, his eyes said. But the queen only smiled softly, as if to tell him that this would have happened eventually.

Looking back to the curtain, the queen sighed, curled her fingers into her sleeves as Thor came to sit beside her. Loki had his eyes closed, his head leaned against Sigyn's shoulder as she whispered.

"You're home... You're home..."

Frigga hadn't held him like that in years.


	16. Chalk Outline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Hoodoo" by Muse.

"What are you doing?"

Tony shrugged as though it were obvious, the glasses spread across the bar in front of him, one hand holding the liquor while the other kept baby occupied. It wasn't the most glamorous thing, having Bradley strapped to his chest again and trying to stick his fingers in the alcohol, but considering how much it meant to Pepper that he do his best to be a real dad, this was a good start. Just so long as she didn't find out that he was trying to brew cocktails in front of their son. She would murder him if Bradley got his hands on the stuff. Alcohol wasn't exactly good for babies.

Rhodey stared at him blankly, the sort of look that came about just before the man outright told Tony that he was a freaking idiot. Instead of paying him any mind, knowing that it was coming, Tony kept on, singing under his breath and, eventually, popping a pacifier into the baby's mouth in hopes of keeping him focused on something other than the drinks.

"Tony..."

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm playing the part of a good host, and inviting you to sit down while I make you a drink." Tony motioned to the sofa with wide eyes. "Now, sit."

Still staring at him, Rhodey moved slowly away from the elevator, as though he were expecting Tony to yank a paintball gun out from behind the bar and let him have it. Now, as much fun as that sounded, the billionaire would abstain from such a childish gesture, for now, and keep on with the original plan: Lull the baby to sleep while Pepper was out and about, and then get drunk off his ass. Apparently, three-dimensional films were said to be weirder than the psyche of Salvador Dali when a man was either high or drunk. Both wouldn't be bad, but Pepper wouldn't approve, and there was no fun in it if Rhodey wouldn't participate.

"I thought you called me all the way out here for–"

"Fun, Rhodey. The word is fun."

The officer groaned, leaned back onto the sofa and shook his head. "For repairs, Tony," he said, and gestured to the glowing light beneath Tony's shirt. "I thought you'd dropped out of the damn sky again, idiot. Otherwise, I wouldn't have rushed out here at the drop of a hat."

Tony sighed, lifted the glasses from the bar and held them well out of Bradley's reach as he slipped onto the sofa himself, slid one of the glasses across the table to Rhodey. He stared at his friend, stuck out his lower lip and feigned hurt.

"Oh, I see," he said, and offered Bradley a rattle that he accepted happily. "So, unless I'm dying, you won't come visit. That's nice to know. Asshole."

"Tony." He shifted across the sofa and away from Rhodey. " _Tony._  Look, I'm not saying that I won't stay, all right? I just... I can't just fly out here whenever you need someone else to mess with."

Tony snorted. "Relax, Rhodey. It was a joke," he said, and pulled up the DVR on the television. "Now, what do you say about horror? I hear  _Paranormal Activity_  scares the living jizz out of people." A smirk. "I bet it's even better when you're drunk."

"You sure this is all right?" The officer nodded to Bradley who whacked Tony in the face with the rattle as if on cue. "I'm no expert on kids, but I don't think that horror films are exactly... good for their little minds, you know? Could scar them for life."

"Well, I'm sure as hell not watching  _Barney's Big Adventure_ , Rhodey." He tossed the remote to the other man. "Fine. You pick something while I put the little genius to bed."

Bradley squealed as if in protest as Tony stood, snatched the glass off the table and nearly skipped through the room. Babies were easy, aside from changing diapers. Let them crawl around on the floor, play with colorful and noisy little toys, and they just wore themselves right out. Hell, leaving them to lie in the crib and suck on teddy bears was just as effective. Especially if they started to cry. That took up more of their limited energy than everything else combined. And, considering how hard it would be to talk Rhodey into actually watching something cool with baby around, Tony decided that that last option was his best bet. Being a Stark, Bradley didn't exactly have vast reserves of patience, and, after being left in his crib for a while, would probably get bored and fall fast asleep.

With a foot, Tony nudged the door to the nursery open, brought the glass to his lips and found that he'd already finished the thing off. He frowned and set it on the dresser.

"Okay, little man," he said, pulling Bradley out of the carrier. "Time for you to take a nap so Daddy can have a bit of fun with Uncle Sourpatch."

The baby scrunched up his face and, with a tiny arm, brought the rattle against Tony's face as if to insist otherwise. Tony shrugged it off and lowered him into the crib, all the while humming under his breath in hopes that it would help to usher his son to sleep. But Bradley only stared up at him, fat little face still twisted into what must have been a frown, and dropped the toy, raised his little arms up and arched his back as he began to cry.

"Shit! No, no, no! D-Don't cry, baby..."

Tony pulled him back into his arms again, tried to rock him the way he'd seen Pepper do, and kept shushing him, telling Bradley that he needed to be quiet or he'd scare Rhodey away and ruin all the fun. Strangely, as soon as he said so, he felt like a complete ass. With a sigh, he settled the baby against his shoulder and rubbed his back. As much as he wanted to test his theory on drinking and horror films, it would have to wait.

A knock came on the door then.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

Rhodey poked his head into the room. "You didn't happen to fix the arclight while you were in here, did you?"

"No," Tony frowned. He'd completely forgotten about it in all his excitement. "Why?"

"Well, Pepper just called, and she's coming up the elevator now."

Swearing under his breath, Tony grabbed the glass off the dresser and rushed back out into the living room with Bradley still wailing in his ear. Bouncing the infant, he told Rhodey to hide the damn nuts, to which the officer stared at him with a blank look. Did nobody watch good film anymore?

"Hide the damn cocktails!" he hissed, and nodded towards the bar.

"What, you mean she didn't know you were having–"

"She knew  _you_  were coming! Pepper thought I was kidding when I told her about the cocktails, you twit!" Balancing Bradley in one arm, Tony hurried behind the bar and started dumping the drinks out in the sink as Rhodey stared at him in disbelief. "She'll hang my ass out to dry if she finds out I–" The elevator dinged then, and Tony's eyes nearly dropped to the floor. "The DVR!" he hissed, noting the remote in his friend's hand. "Put on something... kid-friendly!"

Just as the doors began to open, Sesame Street burst onto the screen with a myriad of color and dancing puppets that Tony couldn't stand. Still, he put on his best poker face and shifted out from behind the bar, shushing and patting his son as he cried.

"Tony, Steve is... What are you doing...?"

Pepper's eyes fell on the glass that sat on the edge of the counter, and moved towards Rhodey's which had been left on the table.

"Well, he got a little fussy, so I thought I'd put a little Pig Bird on for him." Hopefully, the bluff would work well enough to distract her. "You know how much the kids love that... Smelmo."

Beneath her red hair, Pepper's eyes did all the talking for her. She didn't believe him. "Elmo," she said. "And Big Bird. And why are there cocktail glasses on the–"

"What were you saying about Steve?" He didn't really care, but it was better to deal with him than to have Pepper telling him that he was doing a lousy job at being a dad. That would piss him off more than anything. To be drawing parallels between himself and Howard. "He... He's not here, is he?"

She offered him the phone, placed it between his head and shoulder when Tony refused to hand Bradley over. The little guy seemed to have just gotten comfortable, his cries having died down to quiet sniffles.

"I know this may be news to you, Cap," Tony said into the receiver, "but I'm kind of out-of-commission until I get the arclight fixed, so–"

"There's more of them, Tony."

"What?" This wasn't funny anymore.

"The three of us took a team down to the treatment plant, and found at least six more of those things. We're thinking there might be a whole new colony after all. Not just stragglers."

That made sense, Tony thought, recalling what he'd seen upon waking up on the street. The Chitauri had been dead, and the conclusion that they had all come to had been that, once the missile had gone off in space, the mother ship had been destroyed. Tony had likened the whole thing, the suddenly defunct alien masses, to a scene out of  _The Phantom Menace_ , where the droids had become scrap once the control ship had blown up. Steve, of course, hadn't seen that movie.

"So, there's gotta be another ship." That was the only explanation. The Chitauri were shapeshifters, as he'd seen himself. They must have traveled across space and made it into New York while the lot of them were thinking that life was well and good, probably playing the role of average citizens and laying low while they scouted out the city. "Goddammit..."

"We're in deep, Tony. Without Thor..." The soldier paused, and, when he spoke again, Tony could hear the venom. "Without Loki to tell us about these bastards, how to kill them, how they operate, we're in trouble. If there's another army down there, we're not gonna stand a chance. We barely pulled it off last time."

Tony shrugged. "Yeah, we can't exactly send young Anakin out in a Starfighter to bomb the droid control ship." Steve was silent. "Never mind.  _Star Wars_  reference. So, what now?"

"I guess we keep prodding the ones we have at SHIELD in hopes that they talk. And I think we're gonna have to get the army involved. We can't just sit around and wait for people to die. I'll keep you posted, I guess. Just... get back in here as soon as you can."

"Sure." Tony nodded to Pepper, and she pulled the phone away.

She pursed her lips. "So?"

"There's definitely a colony living down there," he said, and glanced at Rhodey. "What strings can you pull with the army? Think you can get someone involved here without making a scene?"

The officer shrugged. "Maybe. No promises, though. I'm no Jedi Master, Tony."

The billionaire couldn't help approving of the comment. "Oh, well played, my friend," he said. "Now, all jokes aside, see what you can get for us, all right? Otherwise, people are gonna start dying again. And we have no idea when."

"No jokes?" Rhodey said with mock surprise. "Tony, you are all about jokes. Why the sudden–"

"Uh, excuse me, Colonel? We're losing time here. We can all play 'Piss On Tony' later."

As the man offered a false salute, Pepper moved to grab Tony by the arm. "You're really not kidding, are you?" she asked, and began to stroke Bradley's thin hair. He'd fallen asleep on his daddy's shoulder.

"I wish I was, Pepper," he said, and sighed. "Really, I do."

**# - # - # - #**

"Are you awake?"

"No."

He shifted and didn't open his eyes, hating the feel of the sunlight trying to burn through them. He must have been in some kind of stupor, lying on the ground with her under a heavy green tree, not dreaming, not hearing any of the things that she was sure to have said to him. Not asleep, but not really awake, either. And not restful in the slightest. Still, it was better than the dark, than waking up and feeling like he couldn't breathe again.

Even without a proper breeze, the air wasn't quite as hot as Loki had anticipated. Perhaps it had to do with the water, with how close they were. That was probably why it smelled fresh instead of heavy. It wasn't particularly comfortable outdoors, but it was a hell of a lot better than lingering inside, trying to find a proper place to hide should Odin come calling. Even if the Allfather did go looking for him, the last place he'd imagine to check was outside. Why, he'd probably scour the library and the spaces between each book on the shelves before he dared to search the little grove of trees obscuring the alcove down by the lakeside.

"Are you tired?"

"No."

Irritating as she was, he'd much rather waste the afternoon responding to her stupid questions with one-word answers. And Sigyn didn't pry. Not like his mother, like Thor. She knew when to keep her mouth shut, when to leave well enough alone. She didn't try to force him into the motions, the role, the lie.

There came a splash, the sounds of children laughing and screaming as they shoved one another into the water, rolled quickly down the slick, grassy hill. They used to play those same games, he and his brother and their friends. Take turns shoving whoever got closest to the edge down first, watching as they spiraled out of control, collecting grass and muck before taking an unexpected bath. Thor had forgotten about that one morning, so excited by the first rain of the season. And Loki, having waited for days for a chance at genuine payback, had pushed him. With the grass being slippery from the rain, Thor had nearly snapped his neck during the fall, and Loki, though it hadn't been the least bit appropriate, had laughed when confronted by their mother.

"You two are stupid."

He turned, noting that she hadn't used the past tense at all. "What?"

Sigyn made a face, nodded towards the kids on the hill. One of them had slipped to the bottom, and rushed towards the incline in a vain attempt to grab hold of the greenery and pull himself back up. He ended up toppling backwards into the lake again as the others laughed.

"You've wasted your time," she said, "trying to make everything a contest, see who was the favorite, who was better, and at what. You should have been friends, a lot longer than you were."

He scoffed. "What would you know about it?" Thor was an idiot. The same old song-and-dance routine that Loki had been going on about for years. Saying it again, for what was sure to be the billionth time, was useless. They all knew how he felt about the thunderer. He  _hated_  Thor. Hated him even more now that he was trapped in Asgard again, awaiting Odin's wrath. Loki snorted. "That's the thing about women. They think they know bloody everything..."

Sigyn bit her lip, knotted her fingers in the grass and pulled, leaning over to shove it against the side of his face.

"That's rude," she huffed, and crossed her arms. "And you're a child. Not to mention an idiot."

Loki snarled, opened his mouth to set her straight when a rock came flying out of the lake towards him. He raised an arm, batting the thing away and frowning as a boy popped his head out from beneath the water, a smile on his face. With that goofy grin, he looked a lot like Thor. The child pushed through the water until he came to the bank, reached up and grabbed handfuls of grass as he hoisted himself up. He stood there for a second, looking between the two of them before his eyes went wide, as though he'd forgotten something, and reached into his pocket to withdraw a sopping wet note. Apparently, he was acting as messenger for the day.

The boy promptly grabbed Loki by the arm and slapped the thing into his hand, and offered up a toothy smile. The prince made a face. The paper wasn't just covered in water, but gunk. It must have crept into the boy's pockets from the bottom of the lake. Disgusting.

"That's for you," the boy said, and Loki feigned a look of surprise.

"Really?"

Failing to notice the sarcasm in his voice, the boy nodded vigorously, still beaming, and stood with bated breath as though he were waiting for someone to open a gift he had wrapped during the mortals' Christmas holiday. Ignoring Sigyn's nasty glare, Loki settled the thing on his knee and began trying to peel the paper apart without it tearing. On the inside, the ink was smeared and ended up dripping onto his clothes, so Loki sighed and balled the thing up, getting rid of it with a short burst of flame. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been too important if the child hadn't brought it to him straightaway.

"You could have fixed it," Sigyn remarked.

Loki shrugged, not at all willing to admit that he hadn't even considered that. "Maybe I didn't want to. It's not important, anyway."

The look of absolute glee on the child's face vanished then, as though it had been but a reflection in the water ushered away by a tossed stone.

"I thought it was," he said. "I mean, I had to go to the throne room to get it."

Loki stared at him, jaw slackened. "You  _what?"_

"Yeah." He pointed to his friends, still playing on the hill. "Mother told me that chores were through for the day, so we thought we'd come out here and play."

"Fantastic." Loki didn't really care about all the little details. "Now, who gave it to you?"

The boy looked at him as though it should be obvious. "The Allfather. Who else? He's the only one who ever really resides in the throne room, you know."

Loki cursed his misfortune. Of course Odin wasn't so stupid as to not know that he was hiding, that he'd retreat to the last place the king would look in hopes that he would not be found. What a bloody idiot he was for having thought Odin a senile old fool.

He grit his teeth. "Did you read it?"

The child's green gaze dropped to the grass then and he shifted, hands placed behind his back, obviously guilty. "Yes, sir... I'm sorry. I know I wasn't supposed to, but–"

"What did it say?"

The youth bit the inside of his cheek and looked up. "That the Allfather demands your presence immediately, sir..."

He was  _demanding_  that Loki show his face. Clearly, Odin was far beyond manners now. It had become less about saving face in front of the kingdom, pretending that this was all just a misunderstanding, that the God of Mischief was just going through some sort of "phase," and more about getting right down to the grit. There was no doubt that the Allfather would be more than happy to let him have it. Not to mention bring up his multiple transgressions against Asgard. And, as much as Loki tried not to, he couldn't help giving a damn.

This was going to put him on the bottom of the damned ladder all over again.


	17. Thicker Than Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Always Gold" by Radical Face.

Thor didn't like this. His mother was wringing her hands, looking uneasy and perhaps angry, and that was never a good sign. The last time she'd been upset like this, the royal city had been shrouded in a perpetual fog for months on end. The Allfather had yet to arrive, and Thor hoped that he would soon, leaving the two of them to stand in one another's awkward company. He had been called here some time ago, had been left standing for an hour, maybe longer, to wonder just what it was that would happen. He was feeling a sense of general unease himself, his hands balled into fists at his side. Thor shifted, his eyes widening and he flinched, the sway of his body bringing the hammer to bump against his fingers. Shaking his head, he refused to look at it, even as he tugged Mjolnir from his hip and let it drop to the floor. That sound, the thrum of the weapon as it made itself known, like the roar of his thunder, had been welcome once. But now, it was just a sour reminder of everything that had ever gone wrong.

The doors opened with a heavy echo, and Thor bit his lip, turning his head quickly as his brother came stumbling in, Odin on his heels. He nearly said something, nearly stretched out his hand and caught Loki by the arm as he scowled, looked as though he might move to strike the king. It was sure that the Allfather had seen this, for he surged quickly forward, took Loki by the collar and pushed his legs out from beneath him. From the corner of his eye, Thor could see their mother's gaze harden, her body language change to that of irritation and discomfort, as Loki hit the floor.

"Fool!" Odin bellowed, and Thor bowed his head as though he were the one being lectured.

It all played through his mind like a film, his father's eye clouded and burning with disappointment as he cast his gaze between the two of them, beaten and bloodied and wishing for it to all be over so that they could go and get some sleep. He had always hated that feeling, knowing that he'd gone and done something stupid, something that would return later to shame his father's name. The name of a king, the name of a man who had given him love even when he knew, they both knew, he hadn't deserved it. How many times, Thor wondered, had he been forgiven his foolishness? How many times had he courted war and death, believing them to be more important than the commands given by his king, his father? How many times had he dragged his brother home, apologized for nearly losing both their lives? How many times had he stood in this very room, biting his lip and holding his tongue, wishing that he had not dared to break his promises? The answer to every question was the same: Far too many.

Thor flinched, clamped his eyes shut and locked his jaw as Odin paced, though not before giving Loki a curt slap across the face. Sighing, Thor held his breath, gently let himself drop to his knees and scooted across the floor, ignoring his brother's obvious tension as he leaned over, rested his forehead against Loki's shoulder. It was only going to get worse from here, he thought. The shouting, questioning sanity, logic, and so on. Just another big mess.

"...and you go off like a damned fool, trying to conquer worlds that do not belong to us, to you! Even as a god, what claim do you believe yourself to have upon Midgard, upon Jotunheim?! There are things that we are not meant to interfere with, and yet you have gone ahead and bloodied the waters! You have brought war, not only upon the mortals, but to Asgard as well!" Thor kept his eyes shut, breathed through his nose and curled his hand around Loki's. "What have you to say for yourself?!"

Their father was certainly not being kind, not as he had the last time they had been here. He had started off with a pain in his gaze, sought to know why this son of his, the baby saved from death, would turn on him so. Now it was all about force, dragging the truth out of Loki as though he were a boy who could be reduced to little more than tears and confessions. Though it would be greatly humiliating, Thor hoped that his brother would just consent, give Odin what it was he wanted. The truth. It would be far better than baiting him again, challenging the king's authority as he had times before, daring him to bring about the most foul of punishments that he could conceive.

But, knowing his brother, he could come up with torments far worse than Odin. Thor just hoped that Loki would keep his mouth shut on that matter, at least.

"Tell me you're not still hoping for penitence."

Though he drew breath, Thor felt as though it had been knocked right out of him, sucked from his lungs by a great fall in the midst of a hurricane. Gritting his teeth, the god raised his head and leaned forward, caught Loki by the jaw. They stared at one another, and Thor could have sworn that they were the only two in the room, sharing muted secrets in one another's confidence, each knowing that the other would not dare to betray them. His secrets were Loki's, and it was very much the same the other way around. He only wished that it were so, that they could be as they were but better, growing even further into men as the days passed, still playing the games that stuck with brothers for an eternity.

But, more than that, Thor wanted him to keep his mouth shut.

"Please," he pleaded. "Please, don't..."

Loki should have shoved him away, told him to mind his own damn business and stop trying to play savior. But he just sat there, stared at Thor with that fading color in his gaze as though he knew. This was tiring, it would do nothing to change things, to get them further along the road.

"What am I to do, then?" he hissed back under his breath. "I will  _not_  beg for forgiveness..."

"Won't you?!" Odin roared, and Thor tumbled back onto the floor.

He growled and rolled his eyes as Loki shoved the king. Now who was the idiot?

"Enough!" Any unspoken understanding they'd had was now gone. "I am no child, and certainly not yours! What right do you have to tell me what's right and wrong?!"

"The right of a father!"

"But that's the thing, isn't it?! You are not my–"

Thor pushed off, charged across the scant few feet that separated them, and threw his heavy shoulder against Loki. The brothers hit the floor hard, and Thor groaned as he sat up, pinned Loki's hands beneath his. He would not let this happen again. Loki would fight with Odin with the foulest of tempers, only to turn tail when things got too heated, come up with yet another convoluted scheme to prove himself, and rush off to bring it to fruition, to kill people. But not this time. Not again, and not ever.

"Get off me!"

Thor flinched, feeling his brother's hand caught up in his hair. So they were back to playing like that, were they? Frowning deeply, the god returned the gesture, knowing that the scuffle wouldn't last much longer now. Loki would have his pride hurt more than anything else, and cave so as to safe face. Not that there was anyone for him to really save face in front of.

"I asked you not to!" he shouted back, and shoved his brother against the floor. "But you just don't listen!" Thor sighed. "You can't listen to me, can you? Not even when your brother begs..."

A hand fell upon his shoulder, turning him towards the throne.

"You dare to interfere?!"

He thought his heart might stop, hand raised to knock Odin's away. There would likely be some discussion about his conduct later in the evening.

What could he say now, to justify his actions before the king? He'd been preventing the start of yet another vicious cycle, wherein things would escalate even further out of control with each consecutive argument they found themselves tangled in. Another web of lies and deception, another pearl white fountain that would burst with the blood of innocents. If his purity of heart, his genuine desire to stop yet another war, was seen as interference, defiance, a betrayal by his father and his king, Thor would gladly weather the coming onslaught of the storm. But he would not wait for the two of them to kill each other.

**# - # - # - #**

"God, it stinks!"

Natasha frowned, pinched her nose as best she could, and pressed on, wondering how anyone could work in such a place. Yes, someone had to ensure that the water was cleaned and sanitized before being filtered back through the system, but it was a wonder that any of the people running the treatment plant had families, let alone body hair. The stench, she swore, had all but burned off her eyebrows.

If it weren't for Tony, sitting around at Stark Tower and probably playing instead of undergoing proper maintenance, she could be sitting at home with a cup of coffee or in a hot bath. Not crawling under pipes and on the floor, and moving through doors that looked like they were covered with shit. Of course, with the power having been shut down during the course of her operation, she couldn't tell quite what it was. Natasha hoped it was just rust.

The whirring of the machinery was somewhat missed, for the steady drip of water from the ceiling was really starting to grate on her nerves. Almost as much as that stupid bastard, Loki. She would have blamed him for all of this, for the fact that, once again, she was on her knees with a flashlight, checking every nook and cranny of the plant for Chitauri, but he hadn't hidden these freaks under the city. So far as she knew. Why, the more Natasha thought about it, the more she realized that it really was his fault. He'd led that damned assault the first time, and it was because of him that the Chitauri knew about their planet in the first place. As for the Tesseract, the assassin wondered just how anyone outside of SHIELD and Stark Industries had found out about it. That was certainly something to question Fury about when she got back.

Natasha jumped as she felt something on the back of her neck, sat straight up and slammed her head against one of the pipes in the small room. She groaned, swore under her breath and had half a mind to toss the damn flashlight against the wall. Gritting her teeth, Natasha curled one hand around the thing and used the other to pry open the air duct. The metal clattered to the floor as she slipped quickly inside, gagging and wondering how the smell of supposedly fresh air could possibly smell worse than the rest of the plant. It probably wasn't fresh at all.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, and imagined that the flashlight was listening. It was ridiculously lonely being stuck in here all alone. "This should be Stark's job. Or Steve's, or... No, not Bruce's..." Natasha rolled her eyes as she kept crawling, sucked in a breath as the air cleared up, and dredged up the best impersonation of Fury she could muster. "Well,  _you're_ the assassin, Romanoff. You have the right skill set. And, seeing how Barton's gone AWOL, I'm leaving it all up to you." She snorted. "Wow. Thanks a lot..."

There was no fluid in the vent, just the rank, musky air that brushed past her face as she crawled. Her brows knit together as another metal panel barred her way, and Natasha wished she'd gotten into the thing feet first so she could kick it out. She sighed and shone the light into the corners to see if she could find any sign of screws, but switched it off and held her breath when the sound of footsteps sounded below.

She was high up in one of the rooms, that much was clear, the floor at least ten feet down as Natasha peered through the slits in the vent. Shifting for a better view, the thing began to creak and wobble. A sure indication that, were she to move too much, she'd fall right through this metal trap, and take the whole end of the vent down with her. Whoever had secured the thing to the ceiling had done a shitty job. The screws on the top, she could feel, were starting to come loose.

The steps came again, as though someone were dragging their shoes across the floor, and Natasha squinted, raised her head a bit and caught sight of one of those damned things as it skulked across the room, followed by several others, hunched over and turning its head every which way. So they  _were_  hiding in the underground. Clapping a hand over her ear, her finger found the button on the headset, sending a short burst of static into her ear as it connected to the outside.

"Clusters," she whispered, when Bruce picked up. "They're living down here in small groups, no more than nine together at once. Keep Fury in the loop, and get back down here with Steve and Tony as soon as you can. I'll leave a GPS marker down here so we can find our–"

Natasha recoiled backwards into the vent as a hand slammed against the front of it, fingers curling into the slits and tearing the metal apart. She squirmed, shifted further back on her hands and knees as the Chitauri screeched, reached up and into the shaft, leaving horrendous holes that, were she to crawl over them, would shred her skin through the suit.

The hands drew closer, each one popping up only inches from her face. Natasha swore under her breath, launched herself as far back as she would go before the holes began appearing behind her. Peering over her shoulder as best she could, she saw one of the beasts tear through the metal, creating a gap large enough for her to slip right through. It reached up and grabbed her then, dragged her over the sharp points of the damage by the ankle, and flung her into the floor, the transmitter flying across the room and out of reach.

"Well, shit..."


	18. Before I Drown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is the "Assassin's Creed: Revelations Main Theme" by Jesper Kyd.

"You are a fool if you think I'm going to let you kill each other!"

He grit his teeth hard enough to turn them to dust, spun on his heel and buried the blade hard in the wall beside his brother's head. Were they half as old, Thor would have jumped a foot in the air in surprise and grabbed something himself, a heavy book or even an unused candle stick, and charged across the room to try and break it over the top of Loki's own head before resorting to using his fists. But, this time, Thor did not move, did not let his eyes waver or his brow twitch. He simply stood where and as he had before, staring Loki down until he wished he could slam the bloody door in Thor's face. Not that that had ever done anything to shut him up or turn him away. Rather, he'd have pounded on the door for a time before deciding to just climb back in through the window.

Loki shrugged and threw another knife at him, hoping that, at the very least, he'd have the pleasure of seeing some of that golden hair flutter to the floor. Just like Sif's had all that time ago. But he had no such luck.

"What will you do, then? Watch me, protect me? Play the part of my shadow for a change?" Thor frowned. Finally, he'd been able to jerk a reaction out of the God of Thunder. "Stop pretending to be so righteous, Thor. Stop pretending that this is all for me, rather than for your pathetic little ant farm."

"This isn't about them!"

The bookcase toppled to the floor, several of the tomes and papers that had lay upon its shelves scattering across the room, some fluttering in the air a moment before coming to rest. Loki scowled as the heels of Thor's boots moved across the pages, even walking over the spines of the books that lay open and face down. If the bindings hadn't snapped under his weight, they would in time. Why, the very next time Loki decided to sit down with one of them, the pages might just fall out in his lap. There was no respect, as he'd said time and again, when it came to Thor and his behavior.

Asgard looked so much bigger, he thought, and stared out the window. Not so very long ago, it had seemed to be just one more thing for the both of them to conquer, to make their own. To explore the whole of her terrain, see every city and village, to feel and know the difference between the bark of every tree in a forest had seemed to be the way to go and make it theirs. But it was too much now, too big a pill to swallow. This was the realm wherein their hopes and dreams had been given life. A place that had been meant to be the center of their prosperity, their happiness. But looking out across the glittering city of gold, seeing the clouds blend into a rainbow of colors as the sun dropped beyond the edge of the sea, it seemed more a graveyard to him than a veritable paradise.

Thor stood beside him then, his eyes moving slowly across the landscape, collecting that soft glint of gold. He shifted slightly to the left, and Loki frowned the way he would as a boy, wearing that same sour face that demanded he be left alone. Though he knew this, Thor seemed to refuse the hint, and shifted closer again.

"Why?!" Loki snapped, and pulled the nearest book into his hand through the air, smacking Thor hard on the arm with it. The poor thing was already tattered from being abused all those years ago, having ale spill upon its pages, falling into the lake, being fished out by a sharp hook. Remembering those things only served to make Loki angrier. "If you're going to insist on lying to me, at least tell me why you keep following me around!"

"You are my brother! And–"

"No! Not that again! You know as well as I that it's not true!"

 _"And I love you!"_  Thor swiped at his eyes and swallowed. "And you don't... you don't just give up on the people you love. No matter how lost they become, or how many terrible things they do..."

That didn't make any sense. He wasn't supposed to be mourned or loved or anything else. Monsters were supposed to be locked away in the dark, shunned and left to die in a state of perpetual torment, loneliness. They were meant to be starved, cut off from all affection, all manner of pity or sympathy and pushed to the outermost rings of society. Beyond that of the peasants and the homeless thieves, left in a class, a realm, all their own. A prison. A world where phantoms slipped through the cracks in the bricks and wailed the whole night through.

"It matters not what you say, Brother. Or how far you run." A sigh. "I promised. I swore to fight for you, to protect you, to save you, even from yourself. I would be a liar if I sat by and let you go." Thor swallowed. "Watched you..."

"And what will you do," he said, "if I tell you that I  _want_  to die?"

That glistening fire shot through the room, the same he'd seen all those many times, the days that he'd been sure that the both of them would die, and wherein Thor had come up with, what he thought to be, a brilliant means for survival. It had no name. Not defiance nor arrogance nor stupidity. Not even dumb bravery. It just was. Just a part of everything that made up Thor. It had a sound, too. Something like a comet, like fireworks streaking across the sky. Shrill and painful to hear, hard on the the bones, rattling.

That one terrible moment in his history, being struck in the chest by the likes of the brutal Fire Giants, came hurtling back, Thor heavy against him and seeming to rival the monsters in stature.

"Liar!" Thor roared, and his blue eyes glistened. It was the very thing he'd been trying to hide, trying to keep up his own image of being a man. Tears. "You wouldn't have come back if that were true! You would have disappeared, the wheels would have kept on turning, and we would have known nothing of your death until they came looking for the Tesseract!" Thor smacked his forehead against Loki's. "Say what you will. It means nothing. But don't you  _ever_  say that you wish to die..."

It was a foreign sound, the one that sometimes echoed in the back of his head amid the turmoil of his unconscious mind. A child, perhaps hiding in the corner of a wide room, bowed over and curled into a ball, crying.

Thor shuddered, and though he had his head bowed, Loki knew he was biting his lip to keep from wailing.

How did the God of Thunder have the nerve with which to cry, when he couldn't even coerce himself into making a sound?

Across the room he stormed, furious as a typhoon, and there was a fear that hung in the air as the two of them flew apart, as though the floor beneath their feet might crack to reveal the unwelcoming insides of the earth, or perhaps cause the vast expanse of the palace as it crumbled and took them down with it. Loki's first thought, his near immediate reaction, was to pull something out of the air, use it to fend off what would likely be another bout of harsh words and the sting of Odin's open palm. But the king, bitter as he appeared, stood as but a stone until he finally came to breathe again, looked once at Thor, eyes now shut, and to Frigga, who had come following at his heels, before shoving something solid at him with a quiet sound. Even though the fabric of the bag hid its color, its smooth texture, Loki could not have mistaken it for anything else even had he wanted to.

He didn't dare look at it, shifted the weight of the thing in his hands and stared, not sure whether to be pleased with this turn of events or disgusted by the fact that Odin now refused to fight with him. The only certainty in his mind was his own confusion.

This should have been in Thor's hands, not his. Should have been trusted to the son who had remained loyal, though a bit pig-headed. So, why? Why was he the one being given such a thing? The very object he'd sought to trade for his own life?

"Take it," the king commanded, leaving no room for argument in his tone. Loki flinched, felt the cube drop to the floor, boom with a heavy echo as Odin reached for him, clapped one hand against the back of his head as his brother had always done. Somehow, Loki found that he had ended up being pulled into an awkward embrace that made even Thor's seem appropriate. "And go." Was that a tremor he felt? "Repair the damage that has been done. Prevent that which is sure to come. Protect Yggdrasil, and protect her people, my son..."

It was as though Thor had set to slamming him into the floor again, demanding that he hold his tongue, be careful as to what it was he let slip, particularly if he did not mean it.

"Why?" he murmured, still afraid to even breathe. "Why me...?"

He looked to Thor in disbelief. Was this  _really_  happening?

Pale eyes moved from the floor to his mother's face, upon which she wore a smile. In time with Odin, she mouthed, "You were born for greatness..."

**# - # - # - #**

They were burning, just as they had been on the day she had left them all behind. The glass breaking from the heat, bursting out and onto the ground as people in the neighborhood screamed, cars screeched to a halt, and the wailing of a distant siren cut through the air. And what could she do but run? Her fault, the crackling flames seemed to say. Her fault for being impulsive, foolish, not confirming the information before rushing into the fray. How many, she wondered, were dying, their flesh consumed by fire and bones charred until they could be reduced to a fine black dust upon an examination table? A dozen, at least. She had seen some of them run to the other rooms to huddle together, the older children clinging to those far too young to understand what it meant to die. And, all the while, she could see them as she ran. Their faces peering out that one window as they burned.

Her head ached, and on the inside of her eyelids it looked like the Fourth of July. Sparks everywhere, growing brighter and more elaborate with every gentle shift of her body. It hurt, she realized, and cracked her eyes open. Biting her tongue, Natasha grimaced, the faint glimmer of the flashlight across the room and on the floor sending a searing pain through her head. She turned away from it, looked upward and wondered just how far she had fallen. A solid fifteen feet at least, for the shredded air duct looked to be as far away as the high-rise ceilings of Stark's penthouse.

Natasha groaned, rolled onto her side and covered her ears, knowing that that dreaded dragging sound was those stupid monsters as they trudged about the concrete floor. There was warmth beneath her fingers, the telltale sign of blood. She must have hit her head terribly hard to be bleeding at all. Unless one of the Chitauri, what with their voices that rivaled those of famous opera singers, had decided to scream in her ear and busted one of her eardrums. And, considering how sound was drastically dulled in her left ear, it seemed that the latter of her two assumptions was correct.

She flinched, one of their sharp hands coming to grab the front of her suit, haul her upwards and into the wall. Natasha hadn't even been aware that she was anywhere near a wall. She gasped, the back of her head throbbing as the creature, which was incredibly ugly, stared her in the eye. Somehow, it didn't look quite so threatening as before, what with toting weapons around and trying to shoot people down. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that she'd killed many of its kind some time ago. Killing something, as she had come to learn over the years, drastically decreased one's fear of it. Not a wonder that she hadn't ever shied away from men.

It made a sound, a sort of harsh wheeze, with that strange metallic ring to it. Natasha made a face, noting that its breath was absolutely foul. It growled at her, shook her, and the assassin frowned as the others convened behind it. What the hell were they doing down here, and why hadn't they killed her?

They should have died at the end of the first invasion, when Tony had blown their starship to kingdom come. Dropped dead like all the rest. So why, she wondered, were they still alive and, aside from living in the sewers like rats, well?

"You shouldn't be here," she said, and felt like an idiot for talking to something that probably couldn't understand her. "Tony was supposed to have ended  _all_  of you..."

It growled again, dropping her to the floor and glanced upward in time to take an arrow to the jaw. It screeched and writhed, the others joining in on the grating chorus as Clint, quite by surprise, dropped out of the hole in the vent, and sent the rest of them running, knocking the one to the ground.

As Natasha sat up, Clint snorted, grabbed the arrow by the shaft and pulled, dragging the now bleeding alien across the floor. It didn't move.

"Hooks?" she said, nodding to the arrow. Damn, that must have hurt.

He shrugged. "Fury wanted one of them..." Clint stared down at the thing. "I just didn't promise it would be alive."

The assassin sighed, feeling the headache as it crept through her skull. "Well, I don't know how we're gonna find the rest of them now. Way to go." She paused. "Which brings about how you found me in the first place."

Bending down, Clint took her by the chin, turned her head to inspect the shallow cuts on her cheek. Satisfied, he shrugged, reaching behind her to collect the transceiver. She'd forgotten that it had fallen out. "You called Bruce, and left the GPS on. Of course, there was no way we were going to talk him into coming down here." Clint wrinkled his nose. "The smell of shit alone would be enough to turn him green."

"Well, you can tell him that when we get out of here." Natasha leaned back against the wall and yawned. "And... thanks for pulling me out of that mess..."

Even in the dim light, she knew that the archer was smiling.

**# - # - # - #**

"That was interesting," Thor said with a grin as he sauntered into the room.

His mother looked up from her book amid turning the pages. She watched him expectantly, waiting for him to further elaborate on the statement. But, still smiling, Thor kept his mouth shut and continued walking about until he came to stand at the window. Leaning back, he sat on the windowsill and beamed, staring at her all the while. She was well aware of what he was talking about, and so there was no need for him to ask about it.

They sat that way for several minutes until Frigga sighed and snapped the book shut, wearing an almost guilty expression.

"He needed to hear it."

Thor knit his brow. "Loki has heard it," he said. "All the time. From–"

"Not from me." She looked to the floor. "He needed to hear it from your father..."

So he'd been right. Odin hadn't come up with any of that himself. He'd been given a bit of coaching from their mother, encouraged, pushed into doing what he should have all along. But Thor wondered just how long it would last. Would the king be able to keep this up, particularly if he didn't mean what he had said, if he didn't trust Loki any more than he had before? And just how long would it take for Loki to figure it all out? He was rash, but not an idiot. And Thor feared that, when he found out about all this, things would be far worse than they had before.


	19. Playing With Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Medicate" by AFI.

"Are you all right?"

Natasha rolled her eyes and leaned back in the chair, kicking her feet up on the table. He'd asked her that a hundred times already since Bruce and Maria had shown up at the plant with a truck an hour earlier, and hadn't stopped since. Clint had hovered over her the entire time, being incredibly cordial, what with the way he'd insisted on helping her through the doors, offering to fetch her something to eat, and so on. She hadn't expected it, even if she had worried him. He'd been so much of an ass lately, that Natasha had all but given up on thinking about him. She wouldn't tell the archer this, but the only reason she'd dared to have anything to do with him in the past few days was because of her duty as a SHIELD agent. And, considering the fact that Clint was her partner in crime, among other things, it had been her responsibility to check up on him.

At least he'd stepped out for a time. Presumably to grab them something to eat.

She started to doze off, taking comfort in the fact that the meeting room was completely silent for once. So far as Natasha knew, there wouldn't be any need for the room anytime soon. Not until Thor and his babysitting charge came flying back through the storm clouds again. That made her lip curl in a smile. The bastard hated being thought of as a child.

When the door slammed, Natasha jumped up and out of the chair, sending the thing spinning across the room and into the wall as she threw the nearest object, a half glass of water, towards the wide-eyed man who stood stunned by the window. Tony yelped, covered his head and ducked as the glass pounded the window and splintered, sending the liquid dripping onto the red fabric of his shirt. Sighing, the assassin muttered under her breath that he was an ass, realizing that he'd probably come in just to scare the shit out of her.

"So much for repairs," she remarked, not feeling the least bit sorry for Tony as he began trying to pick bits of glass out of his hair. As he stood up straight, she nodded to the arclight. "Looks the same as it did the last time I saw your dumb ass. Cracked."

The billionaire made a face, stuck his tongue out at her and shrugged. "Babysitting duty comes first," he said. "Thought it was kind of important, all things considered. Mother knows best and would have beaten my ass if I didn't, you know."

"Uh-huh." She didn't believe that he couldn't have found time, or an excuse, with which to fix the arclight instead of babysitting his son. Why, he talked circles around the lot of them almost as well as Loki did, and that was one hell of a comparison. "I bet anything you tried to go drinking with Rhodey."

Brushing the last bits of glass to the floor, Tony crossed his arms and inched towards the door, stopping and leaning forward to look behind her with narrowed eyes.

"Uh... When the the hell did we get a pinata in here?"

That was a weird question, she thought, and turned around, expecting to see a pony or some other shoddily made animal hanging from the ceiling, demanding that she crack it open with her fists. But, of course, there was nothing but Fury's usual drab decor about the room, and Natasha could hear the sound of hurried footsteps as the door slammed and Tony rushed down the hall in a desperate escape. It must have been fairly obvious that she was in a foul mood. That, or he didn't want to be assaulted by her questions and let slip something out of his big mouth that would get back to Pepper later. Such as the cocktail hour, which Natasha was sure had almost happened.

She moved out of the room, not even bothering to peer around corners and through office doors to see if Tony was playing hide-and-seek with her. It just wasn't worth it.

Clint had rushed down to the cafeteria twenty minutes earlier, she remembered, and yanked open the door to the stairwell in time to see Darcy, whom she had nearly forgotten about, drag Steve by the hand as she hurried down the steps, laughing. Peering over the railing, it seemed that the Captain was actually enjoying the attention as the girl prattled on, demanding to know what he thought were the biggest differences in the way the First and Second World Wars had been handled. He knew next to nothing about the modern age, even after having lived in it for a few years now, but Natasha didn't buy all that crap the others spouted about him being an old man. Sure, he was going to be classified as one of the elderly so far as his birth date was concerned, but when it came to everything else, Steve was about as lively as a new college graduate. Everything was fresh and exciting.

Waiting until the two of them had slipped through one of the other doors, Natasha hurried down the steps until she hit the ground floor. She had one hand set on the door handle before falling back, taking a seat on the bottom step. It would just go back to being the same after all this. After Clint realized she was whole and well. He'd dote on her for a time before trying to go back to being more than just her friend, her partner. He'd try to get her to say something that wasn't true, to say that she had feelings for someone other than him. And that was a load of crap. It made Natasha wrinkle her nose in disgust.

It wasn't that Loki wasn't interesting and... well, everything else, but he was an ass. A pampered little boy with a huge chip on his shoulder. And his attitude was repulsive. Not to mention his weird obsession with having women melt like butter in his hands. Natasha shuddered. What a fucking weirdo.

"Nat?"

The door opened as Clint backed through it, carrying a tray with what looked to be several burritos on it. While Natasha had said that she didn't care what they had for lunch, she hadn't been expecting the SHIELD cafeteria's shitty burritos. Eating one of those was a one-way ticket to sleeping with the bedroom window open and the fan on full blast. It made her wonder what they put in the damned things. Besides loads of beans, of course.

"I thought you were gonna wait upstairs in the–"

"I'm not an invalid, Clint," she snickered. "And this isn't a hospital."

He shrugged, wore that stupid smile of his that always made her smirk, and set the tray between them as he sat down. Natasha sighed, made a not-so-subtle comment about the aftereffects of the cafeteria's burritos and bit off the folded end as the archer pretended it wasn't funny. Laying the thing on her pant leg, Natasha wadded up the paper wrapper and threw it in his face, shoving him as she did. Instead of returning it to her the way she'd expected, Clint jumped up and snagged one of the still steaming burritos and threw it as hard as he could, laughing when the beans popped out one end and smeared themselves across her face. Natasha smirked and grabbed the tray, yanking the wrappers open before charging at him with it in hopes that the beans would blow up all over his shirt. Sadly, Clint sidestepped, and the tray flopped into the wall.

"Nice."

The assassin rolled her eyes and flung the beans at him. They'd probably have to clean the stairwell once Fury found out. Or just blame Tony. "Shut up."

"Hey, I'm just glad to see we're on speaking terms now."

Her smile faded. "What does that mean?"

Clint shrugged. "Come on, Nat," he laughed. "We both know you've been avoiding me since–"

"You were being an unreasonable ass," she retorted with a distinct frown. So, they were back to that stupid static again. "Most people, at least those with an ounce of sense, tend to eject asses from their lives as soon as they start acting up. I don't think I was wrong in that."

The archer groaned, ran his fingers through his hair and refused to look at her. "Don't play that card again, Nat. It's... We both know it's not about you. Or me." He shook his head. "No. You're still hung up on him! And what can he give you?! He's... He's the  _enemy_ , and you covered up for him!"

"I didn't! Where the hell were you the first time he changed?!" she barked. They'd all been standing in the snow in the middle of that alleyway, watching the color seep back into his skin even as Thor lay cold and lifeless on the ground. At least, Natasha knew that she'd seen it. "Tony, Steve, the others knew! Were you not paying attention, or are you just so blind to everything else that you have eyes only for me?!"

"Maybe I was..." Clint swallowed, grimaced and held his breath a moment before turning back to her. "But... that doesn't change anything. Three years, Nat. And... I don't know how many times he's been here... How much of our time's been a lie."

Natasha's mouth turned into a distinguishable "o" as she knit her brows together.

"So you still think..." She threw her hands up in frustration and moved to yank the door to the hall open. "I should have known better than to talk to you at all." Stepping into the hall, Natasha looked back with a feigned half-smile. "Thank you, Agent Barton, for that useful information. I won't be needing any more again any time soon."

**# - # - # - #**

It felt like a dream, hearing the steady metallic sound of his steps on the Bifrost, watching the edge of their world as it disappeared into nothing but space beyond the great golden dome. He wanted to stop, step off the bridge and let gravity pull him down into the dark, far enough that he was out of sight before tearing the fabric apart and slipping inside, hiding where even the great Gatekeeper could not see. But Thor, as was his nature, kept laughing and nudged him along, oblivious to the fact that Loki couldn't stomach the ridiculous group that followed at his brother's heels. Let alone this fool venture.

Of course, Thor had to invite his dear friends to see him off. Again. And, as they always did, Loki could feel their eyes boring into the back of his skull, radiating hatred. Still, it was not a new development.

Even worse was how his mother had taken to his arm, as if she couldn't get enough of being near him, couldn't stand to think that he might choose not to come back once more. It was a strange concoction spiraling about in his head. The idea that he should just leave, hope that enough time would pass for her to forget. That she would soon grow old enough to not remember that she'd lived her life caring for two boys rather than just the one. But then there was that guilt, the thought that, if he left again, she'd never forgive herself. That she'd cast all the blame that was his onto herself, live the rest of her days wondering what it was she'd done wrong, what she could have done differently to keep him here, keep him happy. But the Tree had decided how his fate would play out centuries before his birth. Written it so deeply in the stars, that not even the time of Ragnarok could snuff it out. She knew that, somewhere, but Loki didn't have the heart to remind her. Not now.

He couldn't very well let her know of what he and Thor had spoken. That he'd wanted, at least at one point during all this, to just die.

"Are you ready?" Thor asked, and slapped him on the back.

Loki flinched and stumbled forward, falling hard and sliding across the bridge just far enough to catch the Tesseract before it dropped off and disappeared into the cosmos. Gritting his teeth and clutching the thing to his chest, Loki sat up and turned slowly to glower at Thor, silently demanding that he not do that again and keep his damned hands to himself.

Naturally, the God of Thunder only shrugged an apology. Getting to his feet, Loki openly rolled his eyes.

"You'll be fine," his mother said, brushing his hair as Loki let the bag hang at his side. "Just... do what you think is right."

What a laugh that was. For years, he'd done exactly as he pleased. Refused to be bound by rules or regulations, be they of Asgard or any other realm. Everything, in his mind, had seemed to be going the right way for a time, even when Loki had known that he was dead wrong in venturing down those paths, that his sins would catch up with him eventually. But they'd all turn out well in the end, he'd told himself. He'd get what he wanted. Odin's throne, his brother's eternal exile, his mother's unrequited love and trust. He'd live as a king, and Asgard, the Nine Realms, would be his. No one would dare challenge him, defy him. Everything would be as it was meant to have been from the beginning.

The god scoffed, shaking his head and laughing, though it wasn't the slightest bit humorous. Ironic, really, that she'd say that.

"I'm not so sure," he sighed, "that I know what  _is_  right anymore..."

The queen's gaze dropped and she stepped back, still forcing that smile to remain upon her face. She couldn't stand to let her sons see her weakness, though Loki had developed that strange sixth sense with which to determine just when she was putting up a front, and how long it would last. Looking to his brother, he wondered if Thor had something similar when it came to Odin. But, glancing between the pair, it was reaffirmed in his mind that Thor's sixth sense, and it was certain he had this one, was his insatiable battle lust.

As the wheels in the dome began to turn, the shock of power thrumming through the golden structure, Loki made a face and dared to glance back at Odin. There was something very fishy about the way he'd been behaving, and it certainly wasn't trout caught in Thor's trousers again. His pale eyes narrowed, one brow arching in suspicion just as Thor caught him in a headlock.

_"Dammit, Thor!"_

The God of Thunder only laughed and, when Loki thumped him in the leg with the bag, let go.

"Oh, don't be that way," he said. "You've got to open up a bit. Have some fun! Laugh! Smile!"

As if he could. The God of Mischief prided himself on making trouble, seeing the looks on people's faces when they came across something shocking and unpleasant. Spiders upon the great silver dish rather than a proper roast, snakes in the horse's pen, toads in the bathhouse, or just the screams that came from eager women when they woke to find that the skin of their suitor for the night had gone and turned a startling bright green. The little things, the little daily pleasures that he'd come to rely on so in his youth. Not a boy, but far too eager to win Odin's approval and hear the king acknowledge him as a man. War had never been the foremost thing on his mind. It had been a distant daydream, some fantasy that seemed to exist only in the dusty old history books he had come to love so. Just something that might come along sometime years into the future. Another challenge that would be easily won. A means with which to defend and remind the people of that which he'd claimed as his own.

Now, staring into the spiral of colors as the Bifrost waited to drag them back to Midgard, there was one thing he knew for certain. All of this was so wrong. War was coming. Not only to Asgard, but the pitiful little planet his brother held so dear. And, no matter how many times Loki tried to justify himself, there was nothing with which to deny that it was all his fault.


	20. Open The Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Passive" by A Perfect Circle.

This was hell, he thought, and leaned forward just enough to turn his head and lay his cheek against the cold table. As if being shoved through the Bifrost wasn't bad enough to begin with, Loki had all but cracked his bones upon impact, smacking the rooftop of the SHIELD building on his hands and knees, and could still feel the ringing in his ears, the heavy thrum of the dome's humming in his aching joints. Thor, of course, had laughed at his uncertainty upon seeing the Avengers again, swearing that, were anything to go awry, he'd remain unbiased and ensure that negotiations were peaceful. That hadn't been comforting in the slightest, given Thor's own temper, and Loki almost wished that he had thought to bet on that, for he would certainly have been collecting something worthwhile at the end of the day.

Now he was stuck, framed on either side by Thor and Jane as the group chattered on about having found multiple groups of small Chitauri forces hiding in the sewers, though he wasn't really paying attention. Quite naturally, as soon as the cacophony of voices had died down, they all turned to stare squarely at him. And Thor, still trying like an idiot to be the good elder brother, kept patting him on the shoulder.

Really, the god should have declined when it had been brought about that he be involved. Not that it had been an invitation in the first place. Why, Director Fury had turned that one eye towards him, frowning in a manner reminiscent of Odin, and had nodded to Thor. After that, Loki had been all but dragged into the room and shoved into a seat. But, he thought, sitting upright, if he were going to be held against his will, he was going to to what he damn well pleased. And Fury could just suck it up and get over it.

Across the table, Tony sat chewing on the rim of a plastic cup of water. Easily ignored, and certainly not something he would have any fun with. His eyes moved along the ring of people set about the table, catching Barton's iced glare before shrugging it off and moving along. Humans were so damned petty. Holding a grudge was one thing, but holding a grudge against a god, and the God of Mischief to boot, was very much the same as asking for bad things to happen. Eventually, Loki's gaze settled upon the assassin, unable to pull away as though she were the magnet and he the blasted paperclip. Between her painted lips sat the steadily twitching cigarette as she struggled not to bite down on the thing, probably out of sheer irritation which, Loki hoped brightly, must have been directed at the archer.

Leaning back in the seat, Loki bit down on a knuckle to keep from smiling, and, the instant Natasha turned her head towards him, winked and set the smoke alight.

The thing made a loud popping sound, sending everyone flying back and away from the table, still seated as they pushed off and set the wheels in motion. Beside him, Jane screamed, startling Darcy, who had fallen asleep sideways as though the chair were a hammock, into flipping back and over one of the arms and onto the floor. The cigarette was promptly dropped onto the table, sputtering and wailing and smoking as though someone had thrown fireworks through one of the windows. The door opened then as Fury began shouting, and Agent Hill rushed in with a fire extinguisher, aiming the hose at the thing and letting the white foam cover the tabletop as it put out the smoke and drowned the sound. Once the container was empty and the room silent, Loki found himself doubled over in the chair and snickering, not even bothering to hide the fact that this had all been his doing.

Then again, who else could it have been?

"You sonofabitch!" Natasha shouted, and he could hear her kick the chair into the wall as she crossed the room. At that, he sat upright and laughed openly, not the least bit bothered by the fact that she'd closed her hand around his collar. "What the hell is the matter with you?!"

After several long minutes, Loki took a breath, the laughter having died down to near-silent snickering once again. He couldn't look at her, he realized, lest it all started up again.

"Well," he said, still giddy, "according to popular belief, there is plenty wrong with me. Apparently, I leave much to be desired when it comes to fulfilling mortal social graces. But I think the jury's still out on that one."

The woman seethed, having not received an answer appropriate to the question she had been asking, and turned over her shoulder in hopes that there would be something on the now white and dripping table with which she could smack him. When she found nothing, Loki saw her raise a hand, and disappeared from the seat, moving across the room and leaving her to strike empty air.

Did the assassin really think that she was going to have the pleasure of hitting him again?

"Enough of the games," Steve growled, pulling Darcy back up into her seat before taking to wiping foam out of his hair. Loki circled the table as Natasha started to follow. "This is serious business. And, as you well know, we wouldn't be having these problems if it weren't for you."

Loki shrugged. "Well, that's one way of looking at it. But, of course, you could have avoided all of this if you had only stepped down as I asked. You had more than one chance, did you not?"

The Captain frowned deeply and stood from his seat to cross the room, looking as though he'd like nothing more than to beat Loki into the wall. "Say that again."

The god blinked, held his breath to keep from throwing the soldier out the nearest window, and smirked. "No, you are right, Captain. You were right not to stand down," Loki breathed. The man's brow was raised in curiosity. "If you had, why, I wouldn't have had been granted this chance to put you down myself.  _Like the dog that you are._ "

He heard Thor bellowing then as a heavy throbbing shot through his head, heard the sound of a scuffle and arguing, his eyes clamped shut as he fell back into the chair, felt Jane's hand on his arm. If there was one thing that Loki could not get over, it was being hit in the face. And with the group's seeming obsession with exploiting that and getting on his bad side, the god started seriously considering sending the entire building up in flames while the lot of them were inside. He'd have to get rid of Thor first, though.

The God of Thunder roared over the others, drowning out their voices and demanding to know why in the world there couldn't be one party in the room with enough sense to not lash out and attack someone. So much for peaceful negotiations, Loki thought bitterly, and growled, pulled away from Jane and slipped out the door as, after some bizarre turn in topic, Thor set about telling some of his friends that the affairs of Asgard were none of their concern.

These people never learned.

**# - # - # - #**

Angry as she was and still scared out of her wits, the assassin didn't waste any time in hurrying after him, slipping out into the hallway and creeping across the floor as though she were in the throes of yet another dangerous infiltration operation. Her red brows knit together, standing in front the elevator, wondering why she hadn't come across the bastard within the first fifteen seconds of her decision to follow after him, for she knew this building like the back of her hand. That thought made her a bit nervous, wondering if, somehow, he'd come to acquaint himself the SHIELD building sometime before this moment. Natasha hoped not. In a place like this, there was all manner of trouble a child like Loki could get into. Why, he could even blow the damn structure straight to hell if he wanted to.

Eventually, she caved and wandered off towards the restroom, content in cooling off with a wet towel and cleaning bits of foam out of her hair. Sighing, Natasha moved down another hallway and turned the corner, her head on a swivel as she caught sight of one of the restroom doors as it eased shut. Without a thought, she followed, found herself standing in the men's restroom which, quite fortunately, appeared to be devoid of any other agents.

Head bowed, almost to his knees, Loki groaned, one hand splayed across his face as he sat against the wall.

"You're an ass," Natasha said, walking across the tile to rip a towel out of the dispenser, and wiped her hands with it. She should have made mention of the fact that he also had a rather big mouth, shooting off and trying to start trouble like that. It was surprising to her that Steve, what with being such a passive gentleman, had actually allowed himself to be baited by the remark and gone off to smack the god square in the face. But she smiled. Now there wasn't a one of their group who hadn't given him a taste of his own medicine. "And an idiot."

"Well, if you came to rub it in..." He turned and spit, a red smear decorating his hand as he pulled it away. Natasha snickered. Steve had really popped him a good one. Bloody nose and all. "You... You should hand me a towel first..."

Men were all the same, no matter where they came from. Ignorant, stubborn, obnoxious in one form or another. Always getting into trouble because of their egos, because they couldn't leave well enough alone or pick up the slack when they needed to. Natasha groaned, wondering why she hadn't ever considered being single, and turned on the faucet, tearing a handful of towels from the dispenser and nearly drowning them in water. She left the thing running, dropped to her knees and smacked the clump against his face.

"I still can't believe he hit you," she said. "Must have been a shock. Though you did have it coming."

"Nowhere near as shocking as the look on your face." Loki stared at her from the corner of his eye. "What's wrong? Never thought to light one up before?"

Natasha pursed her lips, gave him a swat. "Shut up. I still have to kick your ass for that."

"Then maybe you should have hit me instead."

Her mind began to wander, back to the first time she'd had the pleasure of watching this bastard fall. She'd never forget it, seeing him fly off the Chitauri speeder in a cloud of flame and smoke as Clint's arrow blasted him out of the sky and onto the rooftop of Stark Tower, sprinkled with bits of glass as though it were little more than rain. And then the retrieval, once the portal had closed, seeing him dazed and unmistakably stunned as Tony smacked him in the face with his suit. If she remembered correctly, Thor had had to pick him up and carry him down the stairs, he'd been so out of it.

And that reminded her. The Chitauri, the Leviathan, the destroyed starship that should have killed all their invaders. Which brought about the question again, the one they'd all been asking one another for several days now: Why were those metallic bastards still lurking beneath the streets of New York?

Now, Natasha thought, would be the time to pull that information out of him.

"So help me God," she whispered, "I will stuff these down your throat and strangle you if you don't answer me truthfully." A few moments' pause, and Natasha went on. "Where did they come from?"

Loki groaned, pushed her hand away. "What are you talking about?"

"We found them," she said, "down in the sewers. Hiding out, trying to go unnoticed." Natasha bit her lip, shoved him to the side and to the floor, scowling as her voice steadily began to rise. "They nearly killed me, nearly killed Tony. Now tell me: Where did they come from?! Did you bring them here again?!"

Staring up at her, he all but devoured her with those cold, steady eyes, not even a hint of a discernible expression anywhere in sight. The god refused to move, though it would have been an easy task for him to kick her up and fling her back into the wall like an old rag doll. For a moment, she thought, he looked dead what with the color drained from his gaze, his skin appearing to be almost the same stark shade as printer paper, the only real color the red smear of blood that still lingered on his cheek and the soft blue tone of a bruise on his jaw. He didn't seem to breathe beneath her, didn't feel warm though she now had her hands knotted in his hair.

Natasha stayed that way for an unknown amount of time, finally drawing breath through her nose with the realization that she had been holding her breath. The suddenness of the sound seemed to snap him out of it as well, Loki's eyes widening as he shifted, seemed to suck all the color right back into his gaze with a sound of disapproval, gripping her by the wrists and twisting until Natasha felt the cold tile pressing against the nape of her neck as he turned the tables, forced his weight down on her with a sneer.

"Don't lie to me," he hissed, punctuating each word with a venom. A breathy, nervous laugh escaped him. "You found nothing. There was but one straggler, and it's dead. I..."

"There were no stragglers," Natasha snapped, curling her hands into fists. She'd hit him too, if she got the chance. "Maybe you didn't hear about it, but there was a missile sent to destroy Manhattan because of what you did, and us along with it. Tony intercepted it before detonation, threw it up into the gateway and destroyed the starship while you were blacked out in the Tower."

He looked petrified, scared out of his wits as he stood up and backed away, tearing through his hair as though there were some logical way to explain their discovery without the possibility of a secondary force having arrived to claim him. Though mute, Natasha could almost hear the screaming that must have been echoing in his head.

"You're lying," Loki muttered, refusing to look at her. He repeated it over and over as if trying to convince himself that it was true, staring at the floor all the while. Finally, he fell back against the door and grit his teeth. "How many?"

"Small groups. No more than nine together at a time. Aside from the one you offed, we've tracked at least fifteen in the last three days."

The god groaned and Natasha thought he might phase himself right through the walls. He was certainly shaking enough to set off the Richter scale.

"Dammit..."

"This is why you need to stop being such a fucking child. This isn't a game for any of us. It's war. And considering your background, we're going to need you and Thor to work through this with us. Otherwise..." His eyes shot towards her. Damn. He really was the bloody poster boy for desperation. "We are  _all_  going to die. And you're the bastard who opened that door."


	21. In A Nation Of Philosophers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up)" by Fall Out Boy.

"No. This is ridiculous."

Following the exploding cigarette and the failed restroom interrogation, Loki had sternly refused to take part in the so-called meeting again, stating that being in a room with the likes of his brother and the rest of the Avengers was the equivalent of being shoved into a circus tent with a troupe of lunatic clowns. At that, Natasha had offered an alternative course of action, saying that it would be something fun and worthwhile, and told him to "make with that magic fairy shit" and get them the hell out of dodge. For one thing, the god had thought as he'd glowered at the back of her head, there was no such thing as six-inch-tall figures with sparkling wings and special powers. He would know; he'd seen the Nine Realms, and the closest thing to fairies were the Elves. Tall, elegant creatures with unprecedented skill. The story of little flying people who made friends with children was a load of garbage concocted by foolish human minds. Second, he greatly resented that she kept after him as though he didn't know right from left, but Loki wouldn't say anything. Putting up with her ridiculous attitude had certainly seemed better than being shoved through that door to deal with Thor and his flared up temper.

But, considering what the alternative had turned out being, and the fact that the god found himself surrounded by racks of clothing as the assassin, who seemed more like a doting wife than a killer, made suggestions to the store clerk as to which color she liked more, Loki thought that it might have been for the best to put up with his brother and, in the end, shut him up with another dose of "and you're a damned idiot."

Scowling, Loki threw himself into one of the nearby chairs, ignoring Natasha as she told him to stand up and try the damn tie on.

"Two things," he snapped, tossing the thing back at her as she dropped it in his lap. "First, you are not a four-year-old girl. You are a world class assassin and a killer. Second..." Loki growled and stood, swatting her hands away as she tried to put it on him herself. "I am  _not_  a toy! And I did not agree to this!"

The woman shrugged, holding the fabric against his shirt as though he hadn't said anything. "It's always the same thing with you," she said thoughtfully, ignoring his protests. "Black and green. Maybe you should branch out a bit. Have you thought about with, oh, I don't know... red? Or even gray. Might do something for–"

Now seething, Loki bent down and swept her up off the floor, snatching the godawful bits of fabric from her hands and tossed them back to the customer service woman who stood with wide eyes and a slack jaw as he carried her through the racks and straight out the door. She was screaming, demanding that he stop being such a sour puss and put her down right this goddamn second. Loki ignored her, content with the fact that, even if she tried, Natasha had no real power with which to make him do anything. All she had was the power to annoy the fucking sense right out of him as she'd already done. Really, this was her fault.

It must have looked strange to the people sidling through the mall parking lot, watching a man in a dark suit carry a complaining woman over his shoulder as though she weighed nothing. But, of course, he didn't have enough sense at the moment to care about the fact that they were making a bloody scene.

He should have known something was fishy when she'd led him down to the parking garage beneath the SHIELD building over an hour before and told him not to touch the fucking dashboard this time. Why, the last time he'd been in her car, Loki had scared the living hell out of her, playing with the radio and trying to figure out what in the world a Bluetooth was. After that, she'd sworn to never willing let him into her vehicle again. Apparently, that promise hadn't meant anything. Reaching up and into her jacket pocket, he grabbed the keys, swearing under his breath. Damn, he'd been stupid he thought, and shoved the key into the lock. When the door opened, he deposited her into the passenger seat and, with a quick glance around for good measure, magicked himself into the driver's seat, all the while ignoring her godawful protests.

"Are you fucking insane?!" she shouted, and smacked him as he started up the car. Once she got over being angry, he'd have to endure a game of twenty endless questions in regards to how he'd learned to operate a vehicle. Of course, three years in hiding on Midgard had done wonders for him when it came to mortal idioms and technology. He'd be a poor excuse for a god if he couldn't master at least that much. "God, I bet someone called the police with the scene you just made!"

Without looking at her, Loki raised a hand to silence her. "Correction.  _You_  were the one who started screaming, therefore you attracted all that attention."

"Bullshit! I only screamed because you picked me up!" She scowled. "I don't like being lifted!"

"Well, if you had just taken 'no' as my final answer and agreed to leave as I asked, we wouldn't be having this discussion."

She said nothing, snorted and snapped her seat belt shut, pulling the sunglasses off the top of the dashboard and laying them over her eyes. When it looked as though she weren't watching, Loki reached forward and hit the button that would send the convertible top, causing Natasha to jump as the thing whirred and the tires screeched against the gravel as he hit the gas. She visibly leaned back in the seat, clinging to the inside of the door. It wasn't everyday he got the chance to scare the hell out of a master assassin. And twice, no less.

"Not scared, are you, Natasha?"

Her head turned slowly, body shifting further back into the seat as though she could melt right through it. "You don't even know what a fucking Bluetooth is. So I'm not exactly a fan of the fact that you're driving my car straight through heavy New York traffic!"

It was probably easier, he thought, for him to avoid buses belching smoke and insane taxi cab drivers speeding up and onto curbs than her. All things considered, mortals didn't have the best reflexes and, some of them, had attention spans the were easily topped by even those of the likes of goldfish brought home in a plastic bag from Walmart. Hence the extravagant number of motor vehicle-related deaths and accidents that were reported around the world each year.

"Some credit, please," he muttered. "Three years gives one plenty of time to do a great number of things."

The assassin lowered her glasses. "It took you three years to learn how to drive?"

"Two days," Loki corrected her, and she frowned.

"Where?"

"Berlin."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Fucking show off."

She, along with the rest of the group, would probably think that he'd spent all that time playing games, having a good time. Being on vacation, as it were. But it had been nothing short of terrifying, looking up at the blackened sky and expecting one of the stars to shoot towards the ground, turn out to be another blasted ship in disguise, letting lose the Leviathans and Chitauri troops to come and collect. And, if not that, then the voices, their shrill screams in his head as the rest of the world passed by with screeching tires and blaring horns. It didn't feel like three years in the least. More like three hundred. Torturous, with each passing day growing steadily worse than the last as though all the misery had decided to culminate into a single, lurking heart attack.

But, even with that gnawing on the matter at the back of his skull, there was one thing, aside from the impending invasion, that was seriously disturbing.

"The rest of your comrades, save Thor, would sooner I remain in Asgard. So why are you so intent on helping me?"

Her red brows arched and she cocked her head to the side. "Don't you remember what I promised you? I swore that I'd kill you, one way or another." Natasha shrugged. "That's my job, and no one else's. Well, there's that, and you're kind of the only expert on the behaviors of our metallic extraterrestrials."

"Expert? Now you're giving me too much credit."

"Well, considering how screwed we'd be if you chickened out..." Natasha trailed off, stared out the window at the looming figure of Stark Tower and smiled. "You like games." Loki looked at her expectantly. What was going on in that head of hers now? "Let's go have a little fun."

 

**# - # - # - #**

He'd never been happier, stepping into the elevator as Black Sabbath popped through the speakers and he sang along, miming guitar. Why, as soon as Natasha had hurried out of the room, Fury had ended up with that throbbing vein on his forehead again, screaming and demanding to know why in the name of the great God almighty he had been made the director of an international babysitting operation. Now Tony, while he hadn't liked the implication that had been sewn into the question, had been more than happy to sit by as Nick had stormed out of the room without so much as dismissing the meeting. Having waited five agonizing minutes, Tony had then grabbed Pepper by the hand and swept her down the stairwell, excited that he no longer had to pretend he was wide awake and paying attention to any and all lectures.

Beside him, Pepper shook her head and raised the phone to her ear, a crooked look on her face.

"That's strange?"

Amid his air guitar, Tony turned to look at her. "What is? Did Rhodey finally decide to let me jump out of an F-22? I mean, it's not nearly as exciting as falling several thousand feet out of a rapidly closing wormhole in space, but beggars can't be choosers."

Her well-manicured fingers tapped the screen again, Rhodey's face appearing on the call menu as Pepper attempted to reach him again, this time on speaker. The phone defaulted to the Colonel's voice mail, her red hair popping over her shoulder as her head turned, eyes a bit wider than before and worried.

"He's not answering, Tony. Do you think he's all right? What about Bradley?"

Shrugging, Tony draped an arm about her shoulders, pulling her against him and inhaling the scent of the fruity shampoo that still clung to her hair. Rhodey was damn responsible, he thought, except when he allowed himself to become horrendously intoxicated. He wouldn't let anything happen to their son, let alone leave the tower without so much as a text message. Smiling, he swayed back and forth until the elevator dinged.

"They're fine, Pepper. Don't worry. Why, I bet they're just chilling on the couch and watching a grand old episode of–"

As the doors opened, his tongue nearly dropped off as he bit down on it, eyes wide and in complete shock at the fact that Natasha and Loki were the only visible occupants of the penthouse, snickering over martinis at the bar. Tony didn't know how to feel about this. He knew full and well that, were he to make even the slightest remark as to the fact that the assassin had entered his home without permission, she'd return fire with a comment that, as a billionaire playboy, he'd gone an intruded upon many things on his own without really being given the okay. So, Tony decided to keep his mouth shut on that matter.

He'd have to be careful, too.

"Uh, 'scuse me," he said and walked quickly across the floor, one hand raised. "As the host, I think it only appropriate that I be invited to the party." The pair, having ceased their laughing for the moment, turned to stare blankly at him. "Barkeep," he nodded to Loki, "I'll have a martini as well."

Rather than humoring him with a glass, as Tony had hoped he would, the god visibly bit his lip and raised his brow with a shrug, reaching beneath the bar with a hand and pulling out a bottle which, as the billionaire realized once it hit the counter top, was completely empty. Loki smiled and downed what was left in his glass as Natasha leaned forward and smacked her head as she burst out laughing. Steadily, the situation became much more clear.

"Oh, my  _God_ ," Tony said, and hurried to stand at the assassin's side as she lazily rolled the glass, which was empty, about with her wrist. "You drank the whole damn bottle?!"

Again, Loki shrugged. "Now that is one thing I am pleased to say I'm responsible for."

Tony made a sound of disapproval, almost whining as he grabbed the bottle, staring into the empty thing with a heavy sigh. Of all the things they could have finished off, it had to have been this one. He'd purposely hidden it behind all the others in hopes that no one would find it. He'd had the thing special ordered and procured for him by a friend who had owed him a favor. It had been meant for a very special night, this wine, which, as Tony now noted with a grimace as he turned to watch Pepper walk down the hall towards the baby's room, would not be happening any time soon.

"This shit doesn't grow on trees, you know!" he snapped, slapping the god on the arm. He was sorely tempted to break the bottle over the bastard's head, but Tony knew better. Loki wouldn't have come here just to collect on the drink he hadn't been granted the last time. He'd been talked into it. "And you," he shouted, slamming a fist on the counter as Natasha sat straight up, "are in so much goddamn trouble."

She sniffled, her cheeks rosy as her eyes moved towards him for a moment, hovering before looking to Loki who still wore that smug grin on his stupid face. Bastard.

After a moment, Natasha's forehead hit the counter again, and Tony, throwing up his hands, threw in the bloody towel. He paused, holding the bottle above the trash can a moment, and turned back to the god.

"How are you not stone drunk?"

"I possess a much higher tolerance for alcohol than you people," he said, and the last word died out as Steve and Bruce came charging out of the elevator, arguing. He sighed. "Most regrettably."

"You said it wasn't a big deal!"

"I also asked you not to touch anything! I  _asked_  you! Nicely!"

"Yeah, well you're not being so cordial now!"

Bruce stared at the captain with wide eyes, motioning back towards the elevator as though the problem in question were standing right there. "Steve, you shut off the system! Now I have to wait for it to reboot!"

Tony leaned back on the counter, groaning aloud. He'd forgotten that the two of them had come back to the tower with himself and Pepper. Shit.

"Unfortunate, isn't it?" Loki murmured, and set to breaking into another bottle. Tony turned with a curious frown. "Unlike the rest of you, it would take me hours to drown out this rubbish with a drink. I'm quite envious, actually. I imagine you yourself could take to singing off-key serenades in no less than twenty minutes."

Again, Tony groaned, louder this time so that the two quarreling men would shut it and pay attention.

"Oh, stop it! For the love of God, stop!" he moaned, and the two stared amid pointing fingers at one another. Tony rubbed his forehead, knowing damn well that Loki was just enjoying being a spectator. "Okay. What the hell happened?" he demanded, punctuating each word. "Bruce?"

The doctor grinned sarcastically, crossing his arms and nodding to the Captain. "Well, since the meeting was a complete bomb," Tony imagined Loki taking a bow behind him, "I thought that we could come back here and run through the material ourselves in R&D. So, I set up a trace on the GPS Natasha left in the treatment plant. Thought I could tap into the lost headset and camera for a feed. Well, I got one. And while the thermal program for the camera was running, Captain Rogers here decided to use that particular computer to try and learn about email. Shut the whole thing down."

"Really, Cap?" Tony said accusingly, eyes narrowed. "You chose a computer in R&D to check your Gmail?"

Steve grimaced and sighed. "Well, if someone had told me first–"

"I didn't know you were there!" Bruce exclaimed, moving several feet away from the both of them. Apparently, things were too tense. "You... You didn't exactly say anything..."

Tony grit his teeth and clicked his tongue, nodding towards Bruce as he stared the Captain down. "Well, he's got you there. And you could have, oh, I don't know... used a Smartphone."

"Oh, please," Loki snickered. "He can barely use a phone booth." Simultaneously, the three of them turned to stare. The God of Mischief raised his eyebrows. "Yes, I know all about your mortal technology now. Thank you for asking."

Just to be a smartass, Tony pointed in the direction of the flat screen. "Name three devices that apply to television."

"DVR, satellite connection, Blu-ray player."

"What do you cook Kraft macaroni in?"

"A microwave. And that garbage is revolting."

Tony stuck out his lip. "Three internet-related services that allow you to purchase and play video and, or, music."

"iTunes, Amazon, Netflix. Are you quite finished? I hate playing Twenty bloody Questions."

"Tony." He turned to find Bruce standing beside him now. "How are we gonna do this? We still have to interrogate those things. We don't know if there's another invasion force coming."

"Oh, they're coming," Loki said grimly, downing another glass of wine. "And I intend to be completely out of my head by the time they arrive."

Steve shrugged, looking somewhat sheepish as he finally spoke up. "You know... We could just start searching the skies for a ship. Throw a few missiles up there and see what we hit."

Tony sighed. "We could hit a fucking news satellite, you nimrod. Or worse, one of mine."

"It was just an idea."

"Well, it's obvious you don't need my help," Loki said with a wry smile. "I had no idea that Midgard was full, and to the breaking point, of such brilliant philosophers."

The Captain growled, pointed an accusing finger in the god's direction as Loki shrugged off his jacket. "Hey, at least I'm pitching ideas. And don't forget that it's your fault to begin with."

"How can I, what with the lot of you whining about it every bloody minute? Perhaps you should just relocate." A smile. "I think you'd fit in rather well with the Dwarves. The Dark Elves would kill you just as quickly as look at you. Pest that you are."

"Yeah?" Steve snapped, and grabbed the bottle from his hand that Tony had neglected to throw away. "Well, maybe I'm about to get rid of a pest of my own."

Loki slammed his glass down on the counter. That aggravated, almost crazed, look was in his eye again.  _"Try it,"_  he said, and stepped forward to shove the Captain back a few feet. "Go on. I dare you. Hit me again. See just how many holes I put in you."

"All right, enough!" Tony yelled, and took the bottle back, stepping between the two. Playing peacemaker wasn't really his style, but he did not want to deal with renovation all over again. "Bruce, go see if you can't set up that program again. And Rogers, keep your hands off of shit you don't know about, and... go read a book or something."

The two looked at one another before shrugging bitterly and heading back to the elevator, quietly bickering. But, Tony decided, once the doors closed, it wasn't his problem anymore. He really didn't see how it had been his problem in the first place.

"Well, that was exciting."

Tony laughed quietly, turning to lean on the counter top.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but I wish you had hit him. Just not through my window or anything. Renovation is a bitch."

"You actually have the good doctor to thank for those craters he left in your floor."

Tony said nothing, reached under the bar for a glass and poured himself a bit of wine. Might as well now that it was open. "Point taken. Still, I've told you not to touch my stuff before."

"No, you told Thor."

"Well, I'm telling you now. Don't touch my shit. Especially my wine."

Loki leaned forward, prodded Natasha with a finger and watched as she failed to respond. "Actually, this was her bright idea. I only came along for a laugh."

"Really?! So she's–"

A nod.

"Well, shit," he muttered, and threw the bottle across the room, watching as it broke into little pieces.

"Tony!"

He heard Bradley's wailing then, and turned to see Pepper standing in the hallway with Rhodey, a sobbing baby in her arms.

"Shit," he said again, and Loki snickered.


	22. Unbroken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Alone" by Eyeshine.

Staring was all he could really do for the moment, knowing better than to call his brother out on the matter and end up embarrassing him even more than he already was. Contrary to what Jane and his friends believed, Loki had never been particularly patient, though he'd made quite an effort over the years to insist otherwise. In some cases, it had clearly worked. But, Thor feared, this whole ordeal would soon come to prove that Loki couldn't quite handle all this pressure, the spiraling insanity that reminded the God of Thunder of crazed roller coasters in grand old amusement parks.

Sighing, Thor stared at the monitor as Natasha, now fully recovered from her little drinking party with his brother the day before at Stark Tower, paced about the cell, peppering the stern-faced alien with the same questions in rapid succession. How many of them were there? How had they made it to Earth? How long had they been in hiding? Was there an invasion force on the way? How much time did they have? After several hours of listening to her over a headset, Thor had removed the thing and set it aside on the table, turning to see Loki fast asleep in his own seat. A peaceful sight, he thought. The first time he'd seen his brother look truly content in some years now. Why, Thor hadn't really seen him relax in the slightest since he'd arrived, let alone get some real sleep. And willingly, too. That first time, in his and Jane's hotel suite, hadn't counted, for the both of them had collapsed only after a great deal of heated arguing.

He didn't know what to do with all the silence. The only real sound in the room was Tony's phone as it beeped and buzzed, followed, occasionally, by the man's swearing. At one point, Thor had asked exactly what it was he was doing, to which the man had replied that he'd finally managed to install Space Invaders on the device. Thor assumed it was a game, similar to that Galaga thing he'd mentioned time and again, and left it at that, not particularly interested in playing, let alone watching. He settled for listening to the steady beeping again before turning to look at Loki. He'd moved since the last time Thor had looked, noting that instead of being slumped over on the table, his brother had his head thrown back against the seat of the chair, legs propped up on the one beside him.

Breathing through his mouth, Thor eased his own chair closer, head turning to the door as Natasha came storming into the room with fire in her eyes.

Things were horribly wrong. Anyone could see that.

"Well, that was a waste of time," the assassin groaned, and threw herself into one of the chairs, set it to spinning in a wild circle. "All we got out of that bastard was something that sounded like, 'Soon.' Can't get any more vague than that," she huffed, and bit the inside of her cheek. "Apparently, there is an invasion, and it'll be here any day now."

Again, Thor looked to Loki, afraid now that he might wake and start up with that restless pacing of his, assuming he didn't lash out, trying to come up with some way to get the hell out of this mess. But they both knew that there was no running anymore. This was nothing like hiding from their father, who would have been perfectly content to keep Loki out of Asgard without sending someone to be in pursuit. The Chitauri, their leaders, were relentless, unbelievably violent and eager to conquer. The trickster wouldn't very much appreciate hearing this, but Thor could see now that his brother wasn't quite so cold and hardened as he liked to make people believe. That chilling ferocity, that which was often seen in young warriors among their people, had steadily begun to bleed away.

"Nothing to do," Tony said without looking up from his game, "but prepare and enjoy, I guess."

"Enjoy?" Thor repeated with a visible frown. "Do you honestly think that this is the time to be enjoying anything?" Clearly, these people did not truly understand the ways and the severity of war, as his brother had said. War was not merciful. It was not considerate nor fair. It was the embodiment of death, a collector of souls. "Do I understand that you wish to sit about playing games and passing around drinks while the fires of war linger on your doorstep?"

The billionaire set his phone down then, scratched his head and stared across the table at Thor. "That isn't what I meant, Sparky. Now, don't get me wrong. I have a great deal of respect for the fact that you guys can just hop on a horse and go lop off heads." Thor didn't believe him. "But we can't do that here. If we just start shooting off weapons, we're gonna get the Council sucked back into this again, and nobody wants to deal with their shit. My point is that, if we can't get anything more out of these bastards, we keep them here and keep hammering them. In the meantime, we plan on our own, as a group, well away from them, and act when the time comes."

"And how," Natasha cut in, "do you suggest we do that?"

Tony's chair moved back a bit as he reached into his breast pocket, withdrawing a few creased sheets of paper. He sat in silence for a moment, laying them out on the table and folding a couple of them into paper airplanes before tossing them across the room to Thor and Natasha. Reaching up, the god snatched the thing out of the air and opened it up, eyes widening in surprise as he read the letters on the page.

"A party?"

"Not a party, Sparky. A ball," Tony corrected, and stood to begin pacing around the table. "See, here's the plan. These monsters aren't going to say anything. We all know that." Thor could have sworn that his brother's eye twitched at the mention of monsters. "My plan is simple and brilliant. We announce a ball and attract the attention of the media, as I've already done, announce that we've come out of negotiations with the enemy in a peaceful manner."

"But that isn't true. We have negotiated with no one."

Tony raised a hand. "Exactly. But they don't know that, and they don't need to. The point of the ball is to attract the attention of our unwelcome visitors. Bait them and their invasion force, as it were, into attacking sooner than planned. See, if I know anything about people, it's that they can't stand having their pride questioned or threatened. Aliens, too. Nobody likes to have lies told about them."

Surprisingly, Natasha smiled and nodded. "Not bad, Stark. So, when is this going down?"

"Tomorrow night at the Imperial Hotel. Pretty swanky, huh?"

"Tomorrow?! That's insane! Why didn't you say something sooner?!"

Tony shrugged. "I honestly didn't expect things to go this smoothly. So I figured I'd just book the place anyway and let you all know once you told me to go to hell or something like that."

"Tony!"

"Will you people just shut up?" Thor turned, a smile breaking out onto his face as Loki groaned and stretched. "How is anyone supposed to sleep with all your racket?"

His eyes were glazed over as he yawned, looking as though he hadn't seen the sun in days.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Don't be an idiot, Thor," came the reply. "There's no such thing anymore. You know that."

Thor hadn't a chance to respond to that before Loki shoved himself away from the table, kicking the chair back into place as he stood and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Someplace quiet," Loki snapped, "where I don't have to listen to all this useless garbage anymore."

Those words had far too easily betrayed him. Perhaps on purpose. So he hadn't been sleeping after all. Just listening. Simply pretending, perhaps to put Thor at ease and stem the endless questions about his health that the both of them knew he would ask. Why couldn't he sleep? Did he actually try? Was it because of the nightmares again, the ones he refused to elaborate upon? The God of Thunder couldn't very well act as though this didn't bother him, that he wasn't worried enough to jump out of his seat and begin demanding answers. But brute force had never been a very effective tactic when it came to coercing his brother into anything. Why, he couldn't really think of any way to  _make_  him talk.

"Loki..."

Thor could hear the sparks beginning to flare up as his brother turned to glare at him.

_"What?"_

"Where are you going?" he repeated, more firmly this time. Thor didn't trust him right now, and rightfully so. It wasn't that he might just run off again, but that he might go and do something stupid to find himself some kind of closure. Like killing someone.

"Back to your lodgings, if you must know."

"I will call Jane to come and get you."

Loki frowned. "No. I'll walk."

Thor stood up, crossed the room in a few quick strides and took his brother by the wrist. "I am calling Jane."

"I said no. I don't want you to." They stared at one another for several minutes, Tony's beeping cell phone the only sound in the room aside from Thor's pounding heart. Finally, the trickster god broke into a sardonic grin. "Oh, I see. You're  _afraid_  of me, aren't you? I should have expected that the son of a coward would turn out the same way."

The instant he lashed out, Thor felt guilt pooling in his gut, realizing that by raising his hand to his brother, he'd gone and done the same thing that his father would have. Trying to instill discipline into Loki with physical punishment, however slight.

He held his breath, afraid to do anything, let alone something so simple as drawing breath. His brother was right. He really was a blasted idiot.

"Loki..."

"Do what you want," he huffed, and slipped out of Thor's grasp. "You always have."

**# - # - # - #**

Thor really was afraid of him, wasn't he? Just like the rest of them. Yet, somehow, it wasn't quite as pleasant a realization as he'd always anticipated. Bittersweet, really. Something he'd wanted for a while now, to be seen as a serious threat, if not the thunder god's equal. He hadn't wanted to be anything less than Thor, than any of the idiots that the other willingly chose to associate with.

Loki snorted. This wasn't worth wasting precious energy on, and thinking about it was only giving him even more of a headache.

He sighed, eyes shut and leaned back in the water as the radio blared. Annoying as the talk shows and moronic news broadcasts were, some of the mortals' music was something that, after a while, he could get used to. Just so long as it wasn't any of that ridiculous "you broke my heart, so I break your face" bullshit that teen girls listened to.

 _"Oh, my God!"_  Jane screamed, opening the door, and slapped a hand over her eyes before pulling her head inside the collar of her shirt like a turtle. "God, why didn't you lock the door?!"

Though she couldn't see, Loki shrugged, recalling that mortals had a very different standard about bathing than Asgardians. If he remembered correctly, they only happened to spend time together in the restroom when the relationship had reached an incredibly serious and intimate stage. Not that he really cared. Asgardians didn't exactly have stupid limitations like that. If a woman happened to enter the bathhouse while it was otherwise occupied by men, it really wasn't a big deal. In fact, depending on the woman, it could actually be quite a bit of fun. Sometimes there were active players, and, others, little more than spectators. He smirked. Talk about steamy.

"I didn't expect you back so soon," he replied as Jane's hand moved blindly across the vanity for something. She still refused to open her eyes, despite the fact that there was both the high lip of the bathtub and a curtain between them. "I thought you'd be otherwise occupied with scouring the city for me."

The woman grumbled, raising one hand to shield the side of her face as she cracked an eye open, reaching behind the vase that sat on the counter top and grabbing her cell phone. "Well, I was until I realized that I'd left this here." She sighed. "I thought I might need it to call you."

Loki stared. "I don't have one of those," he lied. For the sake of his sanity, he'd been keeping it hidden, not wanting the Avengers and every damned woman who turned to look at him in a cafe to be pestering him in yet another form. Just having to share the same space with them was often more than enough. "They're useless." Another lie. He'd used it for the past few years now, using it to procure various forms of entertainment. Some of them far more pleasurable than others. Jane, of course, would not approve. "I'd never use it."

"Somebody's lying," Jane sing-songed, and the god scowled, suddenly very tempted to rattle the curtain just to send her scurrying off down the hall. "You left it on the chair in the living room with your jacket."

Of course he had, he thought, and decided to just ignore her, settling back in the tub and shutting his eyes again. She'd leave eventually, go to tell Thor that he wasn't missing or hiding or playing stupid games with them after all. And, maybe, if she turned to see that he wasn't paying her the slightest bit of attention anymore, she'd stop trying to socialize with him and just leave him the hell alone.

"Not big on conversation, are you?"

Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to go ahead and drown himself. Like Thor, she wasn't getting the picture.

"I don't see how your people can stand these things," he muttered, and sat up to lean against the tile by the window, watching as Jane moved to the opposite end of the bathroom. So this wasn't strange only for him. Good. "They're tiny."

"What?"

He rapped on the side of the tub.

"Oh. Well, most people don't go swimming in the bathtub. Twenty minutes tops, and I'm in the kitchen eating breakfast."

Why was he participating in this godawful charade? Why...?

"Why don't you run?"

She was seated on the floor now, the phone held firmly in her hands, face emotionless as Jane stared at the lit up screen like a drone. Without looking up, she shrugged. "You aren't scary. I mean, you were, but..."

"But what?"

She made a face, lifted her eyes as the phone was slipped into her pocket, and sighed. "It's different now," Jane said. "You don't look like you want to hurt people anymore. You look scared. Almost... alone."

Was he really so transparent that they could all just look through the glass and see what was inside? If it had just been anger, bitterness, a dark fantasy wherein he could watch their blood spiral through the floodgates, it wouldn't have mattered. But the thought that they could see everything else, a wide-eyed and terrified little boy standing on the shore as a hurricane rushed towards him, was just humiliating.

"You're going to the party, right?" He stared and Jane held up her phone. "Tony's party. Tomorrow. At the hotel. You are going, aren't you?" Loki said nothing. She smiled. "You should. Might have some fun. Better than sitting around here for sure."

The phone went off then, playing an obnoxious little jingle that made Loki want to throw the thing out the fucking window. Jane answered, pressed the thing to her ear and walked out the door, probably talking to Thor as the voice steadily boomed out of the speaker. As expected, the questions were about him. Where he'd been, if he was okay, if he'd gotten himself into trouble again. He didn't mean to, but Loki smiled. Thor was incapable of learning, unable to stop caring. Annoying as it was, there was no way to tell just what things would be like if Thor were to let go. If nothing else, it would be far too quiet. Maybe even a bit lonely.

"Alone?" Loki repeated and leaned back again, stared up at the ceiling. Boy, was that an understatement. "Maybe..."


	23. Slave To These Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "The Phoenix" by Fall Out Boy.

Really, it wasn't so bad as he'd imagined it to be, having Jane poke her head into the room every so often to make sure that the two of them were getting ready for the evening rather than screwing around as she imagined brothers did. And, each time she did, there was something else about her outfit that wasn't done. The first time, her hair had been down, curled around her bare shoulders as she put on her earrings. Each consecutive time afterward, she'd gone back and changed something about her appearance. The only thing, it seemed, that hadn't been changed at all was her red dress.

Quietly, he sat on the corner of the bed, not the least bit interested in the television on the wall. But it was a welcome distraction, one that Loki was using to his advantage so he wouldn't have to talk to Thor. If the God of Thunder said anything, he could easily pretend to have not heard him, and later make the half-assed excuse that he'd been otherwise occupied with listing off all the character flaws in the people on  _Law & Order._

After several minutes of standing in the bathroom before the mirror, Thor growled loudly and slammed his fist on the vanity, tugging at the crimson colored tie that still refused to do what it was supposed to. He pulled the thing away, holding it limp in his hand as he stared at his reflection, fussing a bit with his hair and muttering before Loki, with a roll of his eyes, stood and moved to snatch the thing away.

"Idiot," he said, and fastened the thing about Thor's neck faster than the thunderer could blink. "There. Now, don't touch it. I'm not going to babysit you all night."

Thor smiled at that, pushed his brother back out into the room in an attempt to play. But Loki wasn't interested in games tonight, realizing that this pointless event would likely be similar to one of those that had been held in Odin's palace over several decades. And Loki had hated those parties, hated being roped into attendance by Thor's begging or his mother's kind words. This time, he had a choice, and, for whatever reason, everything in him demanded that he participate. Even if he did nothing but sit around ignoring desperate mortal women for the whole of the night.

"Are you all right?" Thor asked, a look of concern on his face. "You're awfully quiet."

He was relatively quiet by nature, unlike Thor, but it seemed that there were varying degrees of silence aside from the norm. Based on his brother's expression, he must have been radiating, if not sweating, that uncomfortable sort of vibe that even people in the next state could feel.

Loki honestly considered answering, or at least trying to, when Jane came into the room again, fully prepared this time, and smiled, ushering them to hurry up because Tony was waiting downstairs. Thor beamed, sweeping across the floor to offer her his arm as they moved towards the door. And Loki, an idea having shot through his head like a harsh electric shock, smiled, crept up behind the two of them as they fetched their coats from the closet, laid his hands on their shoulder, and magicked the three of them outside just as the Iron Man stepped out of his limousine.

"Stop doing that!" Jane huffed, eyes wide, looking a little pale. "God, you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days..."

Trying not to laugh, the God of Mischief raised an eyebrow. "So, you're fine with walking into the bathroom while it's otherwise occupied, but teleportation makes you nauseous?"

Thor stared, looking from him to Jane and back again. "Am I missing something?"

"Yes, your girlfriend doesn't know how to knock before entering a room."

Jane glared at him over her shoulder before stepping into the car with Thor, assuring him that there was nothing to worry about, because Loki was too damn foolish to remember locking the goddamn door. Even so, she could have walked out at any time instead of trying to play therapist with him. Snickering, Tony followed after them, and Loki was left to hop in and shut the door, realizing far too late that he was not only caught in yet another confined space with the Avengers, namely the Captain whose head he should have mounted on the wall, but Darcy had decided to take another shot at getting his attention.

The girl ran her fingers along the length of his sleeve, starting from the wrist, working her way up to his shoulder, all the while commenting on how she liked this look a hell of a lot better than that armor of his. Touching, though irritating, was tolerable. But the instant she dared curl her fingers into his hair, whispering to him as though he were a child, Loki snapped. Thor probably knew, but that was something only his mother had been permitted to do. He seized Darcy by the wrist, biting down hard on his tongue and launching her into the empty seat beside Jane.

She stared, wide-eyed and stunned, her breaths shaky and audible, almost in sync with his own. He could feel his teeth chattering and bowed over, head falling between his knees and fingers tearing at his hair. Why couldn't these people understand that he just wanted to be left alone? He wasn't one of them, part of their merry little band, any more than he had been with the others in Asgard. Maybe he'd wanted to be once, but things were different now.  _He_  was different. People had died because he'd been stupid, wrapped up in the idea of making his brother suffer. They were supposed to hate him, not try to make him feel like one of them. Like he wasn't anything other than a monster. It all made him want to break through the window and scream.

"Shut up, Tony," he heard Pepper say, probably nudging him in the side, because he grunted. "It's not funny..."

He could smell her, crisp and clean like the early morning air, as she came to sit beside him, her fingers tracing patterns through the back of his jacket.

Who the hell would have imagined that the God of Mischief would end up winning the affection of the infamous Black Widow?

**# - # - # - #**

The instant the vehicle had pulled up to the hotel, the god had vanished, slipped right out of her fingers and into the crowd that had descended upon them to get a word with Tony for their newspapers and magazine articles. Natasha herself had been questioned by a select few, all asking whether or not the Avengers had a backup plan in the event that the negotiations turned sour. She'd bit her lip, ignored the paparazzi and slipped right into the hotel, making a beeline for the ballroom and wondering just how many people were present, and how many men in dark suits she'd have to count before she ran across Loki. It didn't take too long, fortunately, for her eyes darted over to the bar just as he waved one of the alcohol-toting waiters down.

"Are you trying to get drunk?" she asked, stepping between the two just as he reached for another glass, ushering the waiter away with a smile. He must have magicked himself over here in order to down three glasses in under five minutes. "Look, you didn't hurt her or anything. She's fine."

The assassin could see him swallow, his eyes moving up the slits in the sides of her dress before finally making contact with hers. "No," he said, and sounded out of breath. "But I _wanted_  to."

Idiot. It seemed like he was dead set on having a miserable time, on being unhappy. So he'd thrown Darcy across the cab of the limousine. Big deal. Hell, compared to all the other shit he'd done in Manhattan, that wasn't even child's play. Besides, she'd been too damn handsy to begin with, fresh little thing that she was at times. And, all things considered, particularly his looks, Natasha couldn't blame him for being pissed. He must have had one hell of a woman on his arm in Asgard. If not a string of them.

"Look," she huffed, and dropped down beside him. "You can either come with me and have a good time, or you can sit on your ass and pout all night. Which is it?"

"Pick one," Loki shot back, and waved the bartender down again. In seconds another glass came sliding down the polished stone counter top.

Natasha slapped him on the arm. "Fine," she said. "Be a baby about it. I, on the other hand, am going to go and enjoy myself."

Her heels clacked against the floor as she wove in and out of party guests, occasionally stopping when she recognized someone from another of Tony's extravagant bashes, or when someone ushered her over to meet people who, in some way or another, were supposed to be very important in their society. As any gracious woman would, Natasha smiled, introduced herself to those she didn't know, and, after a bit of idle chatter, excused herself to go and try to find someone with whom she could seriously speak. It was boring, listening to these people go on about politics, about what was wrong with the system, pointing out flaws and questioning other people's judgment. Particularly when it came to matters that they themselves knew jack shit about. If nothing else, that irritated the living hell out of her. Pretenders.

After what felt like hours, she slipped away from yet another group to take a seat at a nearby and empty table. Falling back into the chair, she breathed a sigh of relief, waving to one of the traveling waiters to bring her something to drink. As the glass was placed on the table, she thanked the boy with a smile, raised it to her lips and took a sip, eyes scanning the various faces crowded about the room. Some of them had taken to dancing, she noted, and caught sight of Darcy and Steve awkwardly trying to synchronize their movements on the floor. Snickering to herself, her amusement drained away as soon as she made eye contact with Clint who, from the other side of the room, stared at her rather blankly, if not angrily, as a fair-skinned blond in a red dress held fast to his arm, beaming all the while. She turned her nose up at that, believing that the archer was trying to make her jealous. Bastard.

Looking away, she drew her phone out of her clutch purse, set to flipping through the icons for something to occupy her time when a shadow appeared over her shoulder. Turning, Natasha found herself staring into the startlingly blue eyes of a smiling gentleman. They were almost electric, she thought, and saw his mouth move, realizing that she wasn't paying attention to a word he'd said.

"I'm sorry?"

"I hope you don't think me rude," he said, looking somewhat sheepish, "but I haven't been able to take my eyes off you since you walked in." The man offered her a hand. "Jameson Priestly."

How charming, she thought, and nodded when he asked to take a seat. "Do I need to introduce myself, or are you already familiar with me?"

He laughed, running a hand through his feathery blond hair. "Well, I had best be, Ms. Romanoff," he laughed.

"Natasha, please."

That smile of his was infectious. "I'm a writer for the Times. I actually, uh, wrote a piece about the Avengers following the incident five years ago."

"Oh!" Natasha laughed. "Now I remember! You... You wrote that article criticizing the actions of the World Council and defending SHIELD, didn't you? It was all over the place."

"You read it?"

She nodded, red hair bobbing. "Of course. Not only did your work help to sway the President, but it was beautifully written. Incredibly eloquent."

There was a spark in his eyes as he smiled, like a wave of pure electricity. "Well, thank you. I only wanted to do what was right, and–"

The chair clattered to the floor, Jameson along with it, and Natasha's eyes blew up to the size of golf balls, her fine red brows knitting together in shock. People murmured, some of them moving closer to see what had happened while one of the other gentlemen in attendance helped the columnist to his feet again. Natasha sighed, thinking that maybe the seat had been faulty, that one of the legs had broken or buckled. But, when she looked down at the thing, she saw that it was perfectly intact, and that everybody was staring right over her shoulder.

Turning, the assassin nearly bit through her lip, felt a hand close around her wrist and jerk her sharply back. She stumbled, catching herself on a heel before twisting her ankle, grimacing as Loki, looking to be right out of his head, grabbed the writer by the front of his suit jacket, giving the man a rough shake.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she demanded, and stepped forward to whack him with her purse. "You idiot! Let him go!"

"You think he's so damn charming, don't you?" he sneered, and grit his teeth, Jameson's eyes wide and terrified. "Don't you?!"

Not only were people staring, but Natasha could hear Bruce as he pushed through the crowd behind her, trying to reach her in time to keep things from spiraling well out of control.

"What's it you?!" Cocky, self-obsessed god or not, Loki hadn't really struck her as the jealous sort. And what about that mystery women he'd alluded to before? Wasn't she more important to him that a mortal assassin? Why was he going out of his way to get between her and this nice man? More importantly, what the hell was wrong with him? He couldn't have been drunk already. "Goddammit, let him go!"

With one hand still on Jameson, the god turned on her then, grabbed her by the arm again and squeezed. At first glance, he looked strung out. But the more she stared at him, the more Natasha came to recognize what was in his eyes.  _Fear._

"You don't see it," he said, breathing as though he'd just run a blasted marathon. "Look at him." Natasha was jerked forward until she and the writer were almost close enough to kiss. "Does he look familiar?"

She squinted, staring into those electric blue eyes before drawing a sharp breath, falling back and into Bruce's arms as Loki shoved the man to the floor, fashioned a dagger out of thin air, and jammed the thing into the man's throat. He flailed, gagged, struggled for breath as blood began bubbling up and out of his mouth as people screamed and backed away in terror. He began convulsing, choking as Loki backed off, dropped the knife to the floor and watched as the man began to change color, from an ice blue to a familiar silver sheen, his features melting into a skull-like face, the very same that had attacked her in the underground.

Darting forward, she slid across the floor a few feet just as Loki dropped back, grabbing him just before his head touched down.

"And you... thought I was crazy," he whispered, shaking. One of his hands shot up and grabbed a fistful of her hair. "I told you they'd come... And they're gonna kill me..."

**# - # - # - #**

He didn't know where she had gone after he'd yelled at her to get down. They'd come flying through the doors, the walls, even the ceiling of the grand ballroom, screeching and firing off weapons and scouring the room for their target. It angered Thor to not know from whence these monsters had come. From beneath the city or from the stars above. But it didn't matter in the slightest he thought, summoning the hammer and bashing through a handful of the creatures, their bodies almost exploding upon impact, splintering into pieces scattered across the floor.

From behind him, there came the sound of gunshots, though, with the attendees running every which way to escape the chaos, he couldn't quite place it. Turning on his heel, Thor growled, one of the Chitauri having torn its way through part of his suit jacket, pulling away pieces of fabric with a good deal of blood before he plowed the head of the hammer against its face. It crumpled to the floor in a heap, and Thor winced, throwing Mjolnir at a cluster of aliens that had set to preying upon an elderly couple by the bar. He heard the thing thrum as it struck the counter top, and reached back to grab a chair and slam it into the next monster that came his way. The wooden legs came off in its grasp, reduced to little more than toothpicks as it reached for him then, its sharp fingers grazing the side of his face before it bellowed, fell forward against him, a flurry of knives buried in its back.

Looking up, he caught sight of Loki, hair matted to one side of his head, nervously casting his eyes about the room as the duplicates began to appear. They made eye contact for a split second before a small rocket whizzed past Thor's face, catching a number of the creatures in an explosion as they attempted to crawl through one of the holes in the wall.

"Where is Jane?!" he shouted over the noise as Tony lowered himself in the suit to the floor. "Are she and Pepper and Darcy safe?!"

The Iron Man nodded, reaching over Thor's shoulder to fire off a high-pitched blast at another of the metallic beasts. "Banner's on it!" he shouted back. "And Cap's working on crowd control and evac, so we're really gonna have to pick up the slack for them!"

Nodding, Thor caught the hammer as it flew back towards him, turned his gaze towards the broken remains of the door and stared outside, frowning deeply and raising Mjolnir above his head, watching the sky as the clouds began to twist and rumble. The lightning shot towards him in a singular motion, the sound deafening as it filled the large room, shot away from the head of the hammer and branched off in several directions, catching the Chitauri in the web of electricity, frying them on the spot.

They dropped to the floor simultaneously, some of them smoking from having their flesh charred by the fire from the sky. Needless to say, the ballroom was obliterated, the floor torn up and chandeliers having fallen from the ceiling, scattering glass everywhere. There was a good deal of blood as well, which Thor prayed belonged to their attackers rather than to the civilians or to his friends.

"Great job, Tony," Natasha breathed, leaning back to lie down among the wreckage. "Way to attract their attention."

Leaving the two of them to argue, Thor stepped over the bodies of the intruders, wondering how so many of them had come to be in New York again. Had they come from the underground, or was this Thanos sending them to wear the team down a little at a time? The God of Thunder didn't know what he preferred.

He sighed, coming to sit beside his brother, hunched over on the floor with his shirt and jacket torn at the seam of his shoulder.

"Loki, are you–"

The other's hand grabbed his arm then, fingers curling into what was left of the fabric as he winced, refusing to look Thor in the eye.

"Thor, I..."

"Don't," Thor whispered. "You don't have to–"

He felt so small as their eyes met, Loki breathless and leaning into him, holding on as if for dear life. So desperately he wanted to believe that they were home, that there was nothing wrong with the world save for their childish disagreements. But it wasn't so. Once again, they were battered and bleeding in another realm, sucked into fighting for their very next breath. And Thor, upon seeing that hopelessness etched into his brother's face, felt himself trying to fight back tears as well.

"It's my fault... They... They want me, not... not this..."

Biting his lip, Thor bowed his head. He didn't know what to say.

"They're gonna kill me... They're really gonna kill me..."

The God of Thunder sighed. There were no words for this, nothing to make things better, make them go away. Not this time. This was the real world, and there was no going back.

As he closed his eyes, Thor couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother cry.


	24. Burn The Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace.

Three days, and the media had been all over them, every time one of them had wandered into their line of sight on the street. Tony, especially, what with his phony report that SHIELD had entered into negotiations with the enemy and had been successful. But, given how the man lived half of his life in the spotlight, he'd said things would be fine. He was known to exaggerate a bit, and had said that taking the blame for blowing things out of proportion would be his way of making up for it. That, and paying for the damage to the hotel. Not a big deal at all, when a man had made a fortune every day off of weapons and green energy and when he was paid every time his name was mentioned in the tabloids.

Natasha herself had seen her fair share of obnoxious paparazzi, all asking the same questions. But there'd been one man who had approached her at the grocery store that morning, asking about her encounter with Jameson Priestly. Just the mention of his name had been enough to make her mad, make her want to smack the man for asking her such things. He'd been a lie, a fabrication by those monsters in disguise. At least, that's what she had thought before the reporter had offered her a newspaper article from his clipboard, saying that Priestly's body had been found the day before by local cops in a dumpster, his arms torn off and face picked apart. He would have shown her photographs, he said, but the station had shut them away and gotten rid of the key.

She'd dropped everything at the checkout counter and rushed back to her car after that, peeled out of the parking lot and through traffic until she reached Thor's hotel.

The stairs took too long, but the elevator would have taken even longer, she thought, and, by the time she hit the right floor and dashed down the hallway, Jane was stepping out of the room to go get something quick to drink. Natasha said nothing, slipping in through the door as the woman offered her a light greeting, pulling the thing shut behind her.

Thor poked his head out of the kitchen, tomato sauce on one side of his face. He was trying to cook spaghetti for Jane, he told her, because she seemed tired of eating out and heating things up in cans and in the microwave. Natasha couldn't bring herself to say anything about it, about how sweet it was that he was trying when he couldn't even use a can opener without help. But she couldn't. She couldn't think about the happy little things that went on every day. All the laughing little kids in the schools and on the playground. It was just that loop in her head, watching glass fly as the chandeliers fell, hearing screams, seeing blood on the floor on what was supposed to have been a fun night. She couldn't help thinking about Jameson Priestly, a man she'd never even met. A man who had supported their team from a distance, helped influence the government to let them do what they were meant to. A man who had been killed, had his identity stolen by monsters. A man who had never been given his proper thanks, let alone due respect for the things he'd done for SHIELD. For all of them.

"Been staying in a lot?" she asked, and Thor handed her a glass of water. He nodded. "Smart. Can't go outside anymore without being hounded by the press. It's starting to piss me off."

Stepping into the kitchen, Natasha reached for the stove, turning down one of the burners and covering the pot with a lid to keep the sauce from blowing up all over the place. The spaghetti, she noted, was in a colander in the sink, still steaming as it drained. From over the counter that opened up into the living room, Natasha could see him flat on his back on the couch, a slightly crumpled magazine thrown over his face.

"He hasn't said anything," Thor whispered, wiping his hands on the apron that was clearly too small for him. "Not since..."

Natasha quirked a brow, staring him right in the eye. There was something Thor wasn't telling her. Something he'd been keeping quiet for the past three days. Something the both of them didn't want anyone to know about. And that, quite naturally, made her radar go crazy. Now she  _had_  to know.

Sighing, she stalked out of the kitchen and across the carpet, sat down in the nearest chair and just watched him. He didn't move, not even when she balled up a bunch of Kleenex and threw it at him, the wad smacking the side of the magazine. Loki still didn't move.

"Oh, come on." Natasha dropped to the floor and scooted across the carpet until she leaned against the arm of the couch. Reaching for the table, she rolled up another magazine, smacked him on the head with it. He sighed, moving only to pull the thing off his face and stare up at her, blank. The assassin grimaced. "Dammit. It's no fun messing with you if you won't do anything about it."

The magazine was tossed across the room, hers still rolled up in her hand and eventually falling to the floor. Part of the reason she messed with him so much was that he always jumped the gun, went overboard telling her to back the hell off. He got angry, far too easily, and it was fun playing the game. Trying to figure out what extreme measures he'd take to get her to knock it off. Well, that and he was certainly convenient when it came to getting out of meetings or reaching the ground floor of a building in record time. Or just making Clint jealous.

"You... wanna go shopping again?"

He glared, almost painfully, and, for a moment, Natasha thought he might fling her across the room.

So shopping wasn't an option. "Well, what  _do_  you want?"

Loki looked at her, seriously looked at her, and chewed on his lip a moment, drawing one brow down as though he were seriously in thought. He reached behind her head then, towards the table, and brought back a glass with steadily melting ice at the bottom.

"You're kidding me," Natasha said, monotonous. "I try to be nice, say we can do whatever the hell you want," she grabbed the glass, "and you want another fucking drink."

"For starters," he said, and nodded to the dining table. Aside from the pointless hotel decor, there was a burlap sack sitting on it, a distinct cube shape coming through the fabric. "And then you can take that damn thing with you."

"Yeah, great." She couldn't let herself be too interested, appear too eager. Otherwise, he might just hide the damn thing to screw with her. "But that doesn't answer my question. I'll do anything you want, within reason." She had to add that last part for the sake of her sanity. And safety. "Now, what do you want to do?"

Loki sat up, leaned forward on his elbows and tented his fingers. Natasha could hear the sound of the clock ticking from the other side of the room, it was so quiet, and she thought for a moment that he was just trying to ignore her, get her to go the hell away so he could sit on his ass and be a miserable idiot. But what he said next just about stopped her heart.

"I think... I need to see my mother..."

Her hair stood on end as the sound of clattering metal shot through the room, turning to stare into the kitchen just as Thor disappeared around one corner and reappeared on the carpet, the front of his shirt and apron covered with bright red tomato sauce that looked to be about the same shade as his face. There was a crackling sound, and Natasha hoped that it was just red sauce spread across the burner in the kitchen rather than lightning radiating around Thor's being. As quickly as the sauce dripped down and onto the floor, he took two long strides and yanked Loki off the couch.

"What are you doing?"

Well, that was more like it, she thought, watching that smile creep back onto the god's face again.

"Ooh. Does that make you mad, Thor? Are you going to tell me that I'm not allowed to go back, and after all your years of begging me to?"

The God of Thunder grimaced, teeth pressed so tightly together that Natasha thought they might split in half. But he sighed, shook his head and dropped his brother to the floor.

"Just... don't make her cry again..."

**# - # - # - #**

All the phone did was ring, just as it had all morning long. For the billionth time in the space of three hours, Tony grabbed the thing, jammed a finger into the button and screamed, "Give it a fucking rest!" into the receiver before hanging up and shoving it under the couch cushions. But, of course, the phone's base kept giving off the damn sound, and he eventually leaned over towards the table and unplugged it, ripping the batteries out of the thing as well, throwing them across the room and watching as they rolled under the refrigerator.

Down the hall, Bradley could be heard wailing, easily awakened by all the noise, and Tony had half a mind to suit up and start breaking up paparazzi cameras with rockets. That'd teach the bastards to not call at five in the damn morning. Jarvis, too, had been chattering at him since the rude awakening, informing him every five minutes or so that someone else had attempted to slip past security at the ground floor. After a while, Tony had just told him to monitor the situation in silence so he could try to get back to sleep for at least an hour.

It was a relief when his cell went off, Rhodey's face appearing on the screen, and Tony grabbed the thing with an eagerness that hadn't been seen since the last time he and Pepper had had a private night alone.

"Oh, thank God!" he breathed. "First I'm hounded by the hotel owners, who wanted more money than their shitty ballroom was worth, and now I can't leave my own damn house because I'll be arrested for assaulting paparazzi!"

"Tony, what did you think was going to happen?" Rhodey didn't sound the least bit sympathetic. "You  _lied_  to the media! Did you really expect to get away with that?!"

The billionaire frowned, swiped at his nose and made a face as though the Colonel could actually see him through the phone. "Well, shit, Rhodey. Don't go all soldier on me now. You know damn well I've lied to them a hundred times, and nothing like this has ever come of it. Besides, it's not really a big–"

"Tony, I will scale the side of the building myself and slap you in the face if you say it's not a big deal." Silence passed between them. "It's a  _huge_  deal, Tony. It's become a matter of national security, having invaders infiltrate the city again. Not only are we dealing with SHIELD and the President, but we've got the World Council riding our asses again." Tony could almost see Rhodey pointing at him. "All because you thought it'd be a good idea to lie and lure them out in the open."

He sighed. So, maybe it hadn't been his best idea. But it had worked, and now they knew for certain that there were more Chitauri in the city than they had originally thought. Shapeshifters, probably hiding among the crowds, watching them. That was probably how they'd been able to infiltrate the party so quickly. Tony smiled at the thought, tempted to tell Rhodey how damn lucky they were that he'd lied to the press and wrecked a hotel. Otherwise, there could have been a bloodbath on the streets instead.

"Rhodey," he said, and stared blankly at the television screen, the news on mute as a hectic replay of the party played through again. "I know I screwed up. But it could have been worse. People could have died. And..." Tony sighed, in utter disbelief that he was going to use the guy as a part of his argument. "I know it's not a good excuse, but we really would've been fucked up if that bastard hadn't played into the charade. I mean, yeah, he's an ass, and he nearly killed us all twice, but..." What the hell was he trying to say? "I dunno... I don't think he's such a bad guy anymore..."

Maybe he was drunk off his ass, Tony thought, to be backing the God of Mischief as though he hadn't tried to wipe them all out. But, all things considered, particularly the team's lack of coordination and action, he could have smeared them all twice across Broadway by now if he'd wanted to.

"Tony–"

He jumped, the sound on the screen blaring through the room as Pepper grabbed the remote, directed his attention to the broadcast with wide eyes. Still in her arms, Bradley wailed, leaning back and towards Tony as he cried. The baby fell into his arms as Tony reached for him, stared blankly at the television as Rhodey kept on chattering, demanding to know what in the hell was going on.

It was another nightmare, the same sort that they'd seen when the Jotunns came. People screaming, the newscaster not taking the hint, staying in front of the camera instead of running like hell. The glass fell down across the streets again, buildings losing doors and windows and chunks of concrete and metal as Tony stared. He swore under his breath, dropping the phone and handing Bradley back to Pepper, rushing towards the glass door to the balcony as Jarvis set to fitting the suit to his body.

This was not going to happen again.

**# - # - # - #**

"Were you being serious back there?"

Maybe. He didn't really know. She'd just kept asking, saying that she wouldn't stop him from enjoying himself. Not that he could. It must have been impulse, the only thing on his mind, the only thing he could think of to keep her from pestering him from hours on end. An answer that, hopefully, would reign in all that blasted curiosity. But Natasha Romanoff was a tenacious woman, as was her duty, and she was being uncharacteristically generous with her attitude. Particularly towards him, her sworn enemy, going out of her way to drag him outdoors for some unspecified activity. It was more than a little unnerving. Women like her didn't just show up at a man's door with bright eyes and a smile, suddenly offer up kindness after a history that spoke otherwise. Women like Natasha always brought knives.

Loki couldn't make sense of it, that lasting memory of Frigga mouthing Odin's same words. It was all he'd thought about the past three days, trying to decide just what it all meant, if anything. Maybe she'd wanted to say the same thing to him, but had been too hesitant. A grim thought, that his own mother had come to fear him. It wasn't what he'd wanted at all. Why, he hadn't even factored that possibility into his cold calculations. His focus had been on winning, on keeping her loyal to him, on pushing everyone else away. It seemed that he'd really done a bang-up job of warding people off.

Except, to his chagrin, the Avengers.

"Hello?"

"No," he said flatly. Maybe she'd stop nagging now. "I wasn't."

"God, you're such a liar," Natasha murmured, lighting a cigarette. As the window dropped down into the door, she sighed, exhaling a breath of smoke. "What, are you afraid to go home again?" She almost sounded sympathetic. Almost. "I figure it's one of three things: You have daddy issues, which is a given; they can't stand your lunatic ass in Asgard; or you're just a coward. I'm betting on the third. You've been running for God knows how long, so why stop now, right?" She turned, the smile on her face not nearly as mocking as the assassin must have thought it to be. "She scares you, doesn't she?"

As if gentle Frigga could find it in herself to be threatening. She'd never been particularly good with punishments, let alone lectures, as every feeble attempt had ended up giving way to a soft tone and even softer words. She couldn't stay angry even if she tried. Upset, maybe. But never angry. Not really.

"Now, where," Loki retorted smugly, working to ignore her, "is dear Agent Barton? Where could the little sparrow have run off to?"

"I bet she'd kill your ass if she found out about all the crap you've been involved in."

So they were playing that game. A bit of back and forth. Again.

"Did he fly off on his own, or did you make the call for him?"

Her knuckles turned stark white against the wheel, jaw set and breaths painfully slow. She was furious, not at him, but the archer; couldn't stand the thought of the man whom, until fairly recently, she had held to, the man whom she had trusted with far more than their extensive and bloody history in the agency. Why, they'd even been living together when last he'd visited, but that hadn't stopped her from having a good time with him while Clint had been away on business. Perhaps she'd just been waiting for any excuse to pick up and walk away from something that was bland and unfulfilling. Though Loki rather doubted that he would have been her first choice had she been given the opportunity to peruse a much broader spectrum of willing men.

The vehicle slowed to a stop, her head turning to peer out the window and then at him, her eyes visibly narrowed behind the dark glasses, the gentle glare of the sun bouncing off their curved lenses. It was more than a little funny that they had kept this up for so long. This charade. Pretending that nothing had ever happened, playing the part of enemies that, in the eyes of some, could have almost been friends. They kept batting the ball back and forth across the table, each waiting for the other to blink, to slip up and let it fall to the ground. And once one of them went to retrieve it, the other would stab them in the back.

This wasn't friendship. Far from it. Just another game of cat and mouse to see who would be predator and prey.

"Maybe," she said, sounding thoughtful, though there was force behind her words, "you're reluctant to go back because, somewhere in your heart, you're afraid that she doesn't love you."

In regards to himself, they were talking about two very different people, and Loki knew it, though it was clear Natasha was unaware. His thoughts had turned from sweet Frigga to stubborn Sigyn, who probably hated him by now, mulling over their various differences in personality and behavior. Where the queen would offer comfort, the other would be frank with him, even detached as she had been the last time he'd spoken with her. She hadn't been the woman he'd known in years past, so eager to cling to his arm in the cool hours of a wet and early morning. But those words, that sharp bite, were meant to tear a violent reaction out of him, get him to say things, do things, that would shove him right back to square one: Scared out of his mind, and with no one to turn to.

"You really should watch your mouth," Loki snickered, leaning over and swiping the smoke as soon as Natasha set the car in motion again. "Might get you into  _trouble_  again."

It was a thinly-veiled assault on their activities of the past year, and Natasha knew it.

"As I recall,  _you're_  the one who keeps getting into trouble. Botched attempt to rule your home world. Crazed alien invasion. Spectacular team of mortal heroes kicking your ass. Planet full of frozen  _monsters_." She'd said that last part on purpose. "Again, us kicking your ass. Psychotic alien overlord hellbent on revenge. You know. The works."

"How quaint," Loki sneered. "You talk as though you  _know_  something."

The assassin shrugged, veered off the road to the left and slipped down a ramp into the darkness of a dimly lit parking garage before the tires screeched to a halt, throwing him hard against the seat belt. She frowned and turned, hands balled into fists.

"I know you're really a coward. That's why you hide behind threats and cute little magic spells. I know that, as much as you like to pretend otherwise, you're the same as the rest of us." Natasha leaned forward, deadly serious. "Everybody has something to be afraid of. Don't think you're the exception to the rule just because you're a god."

So that's how it was going to be. She was threatening him with that look in her eye, swearing to exploit that not-so-obvious apprehension of his were he to keep on pushing her. Well, Loki thought, two could play that game.

"Am I?" The god smiled, ran his tongue over his teeth. This woman was only mortal. How easily he could outdo her with games, with more than just words. "Tell me: Is this a threat, Agent Romanoff?"

The assassin frowned, living right up to her infamous nickname with that foul expression. The Black Widow. She certainly could eat any mortal man alive and spit him back out again. "That depends. Do you feel threatened?"

"I would prefer it if we could cut out the run-around, Natasha."

A sigh. "Yes."

"Well, a less confident man than myself would certainly give a damn."

The two of them jumped as a vibration shot through the cab of the car, both visibly shaken before the assassin swore and dropped a hand into her pocket, realizing that her phone wasn't the one going off. With fine red brows raised, she stared at him for several seconds before nodding to his jacket. Yanking the thing out of the breast pocket, Loki stared at it, wondering who in the hell had managed to get hold of the number for the damn thing. But, before he could even put the question into words, Natasha snatched it away.

"Hello?" she said as she picked up, and promptly shoved the thing back in his face. "It's for you."

Well, naturally. Considering it had been on his person rather than hers. Sighing, Loki leaned back against the seat and pressed the thing to his ear.

"What?"

"God, where the hell are you?!" Jane screamed, and he pulled the thing away. "Thor's been looking everywhere for you, you idiot!"

"I can't imagine why. I never asked him to watch out for my–"

"Get downtown, now!" she huffed, and dropped something, probably a glass, in the background. "Tony and Steve and Thor and everyone else are fending off another assault, and you're out having a good time!"

Well, that was almost right. He wouldn't doubt the fact that his idiot brother and the Avengers were busy ripping heads off of invaders, their intrusion upon the botched ballroom party considered, but he certainly wasn't having a good time playing interrogation with an incredibly nosy assassin. There was no opportunity for Loki to clarify the matter, however, as Jane promptly hung up on him and left the god sitting there with a relatively blank, if not stunned, expression. Amazingly, the most shocking thing was not the fact that the Chitauri had the nerve to show up yet again, but that Jane had miraculously ended up with his cell number. Hell, even Thor didn't know he'd been carrying the damn thing around.

"Well, I suppose we have to go save your idiot friends. Again," Loki muttered and threw the phone into the back seat. The convenience of such a stupid thing wasn't worth the perils of the Avengers, and half the people in the damn city, being able to pester him at any given moment. "And you don't know a damn thing about Asgard," he added. "Or my affairs. You've only heard stories."

That's all they were ever meant to be following years of being worshiped. After the mortals had pushed them all aside, they hadn't been meant to be anything more than that. Distant beings lost to to the tides of time, saved only in books that were changed again and again. Just stories, fables with which to teach history lessons or mythology.

Himself, Thor, even Asgard. They were never meant to be so real as all this.


	25. The Last Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Breathe Underwater" by Placebo.

One, two, three... He lost count somewhere after twenty, too burned up on the inside to really give a damn. It had started out as a means with which to set another record, a personal battle against himself, just another outlet with which to try and gain some genuine satisfaction when the world he'd come to know and love was, yet again, starting to rip and crumble. But there wasn't any to gain, the archer realized, leaning over the rooftop and watching them fall, some of them screaming, the others already dead from a shot to the head, the chest. Even so, they scaled the buildings just the same, those that survived, hadn't been hit, all leering at him, desperate and eager to pull their pointed fingers through human flesh, let blood drip in a gentle rain down the side of the building to cover the windows, stain the ground.

It wasn't what it used to be, and it was a sickeningly sad truth that so suddenly dawned upon him within the first few minutes. It was only sinking in now, his brow firm and resolute, drawn into a lasting frown as, once again, he let the shafts fly. There was more force in the drawing of his bow, the feel of the arrows against his fingertips as he loaded them up again. An explosion, a bit of debris, and just a burnt up husk falling from the sky. Dropping several hundred feet until they hit the ground, smashed into a taxi cab, whatever. It didn't matter anymore. None of this meant anything. None of it mattered, because, just as he had been when he had joined SHIELD, he was alone.

At least, alone in spirit.

He could see them with those eyes, sharp as the point of an assassin's dagger, held high above the ground like that of the circling hawk. The two of them, appearing out of nowhere, whisked through miles of city in mere seconds by a bit of godawful magic. Perhaps that was why she was so damn taken with him, the archer thought, promptly booting one of the masked beasts off the edge as it climbed onto the rooftop beside him. If that was it, he sure as hell couldn't see it. Not from the viewpoint of a man, nor through all his efforts in thinking like a woman. There was nothing particularly charming about him, starting with his looks and ending with his foul attitude. Obsession. It was a dark, leering obsession that he had seen brimming in the other's eyes. Never fully extinguished, he thought, with each consecutive time they'd been in each other's presence. Some twisted kind of glee, always hiding behind that calm facade, the face that was the universe's purest representation of lies and deceit. He was just waiting, Clint thought. Waiting for them all to trust him, using Thor's obvious bias as his ticket into the circus show. And, when the lights faded out and the curtain fell, he'd set the lions on them all.

His frown deepened, her eyes meeting his from her position all that way down, pistols held in her hands as bullets flew, the gentle sparks visible from his perch. She couldn't look away, it seemed, and that pleased him. Maybe she was reconsidering, prioritizing again. Steadily figuring out that there was no way in hell that a smooth-talking bastard god could do anything to satisfy. At least, not a woman like her.

But the moment she looked away, that same expression on her face again, the archer thought to kick himself for getting his hopes up, set to slaughtering invaders as though they were surrogates for the haughty God of Mischief.

There was nothing, Clint realized, that would satisfy him more than knocking that bastard down again.

**# - # - # - #**

It was strange to him, to see the other everywhere, see that satisfied smirk on his face as though this were just another game of their youth. As though they'd purposefully infiltrated another realm just for the fun of it, having chosen the Dwarves or perhaps the Elves as their opponents for the day. Like a soccer match, each team working to outdo the other, secure a temporary victory that would push them to the top for a time. If that were the case, the two of them were leading the league as they always had, finding a childish sort of pleasure in watching the other side fall, suspending the idea that their father's impending wrath would fall upon them yet again. But, in this case, the enemy was sincerely trying to kill them, and the doom that was sure to follow was not nearly so generous in his treatments as Odin would have been. It was not a lecture that would fall upon them, but despair. That hopeless feeling of emptiness as they were swallowed up, watched the bright blue sky fade into darkness, perhaps into flame, as the earth beneath their feet set to crumbling.

The hammer rose and fell in sync with the rapid beating of his heart, occasionally pounding fine silver daggers into the bodies of their enemies, watching as scattered, erratic footprints appeared by way of thick, fresh blood. There was no name for such madness, save it be war. But Thor, having heard tell the stories, having held fast to his father's arm, his father's explanations of battle, as a boy, knew for certain that this was not yet war. It was but a precursor to what would come, a prologue to all the suffering that the planet would endure. And that reminded him, as strongly as lightning flooding his being, that this was where they had to hold it off, had to keep it from spreading as wars so often did.

He flinched, heard the sharp sound of metal cutting through the air, passing his ear by as a thin line of blood appeared on his cheek. Foolishly, Thor turned, found himself face down on the gravel and rolling quickly out of the way as a cluster attempted to stamp him out. With hands planted firmly on the ground, he lifted himself up a bit, swung his legs and took theirs out from beneath them, launching himself out of the way just in time for the beasts to begin screaming, flesh consumed entirely by a bright, flickering flame.

"Idiot," he heard his brother breathe, and turned again, only to find himself alone.

A passing comment, Thor thought, and summoned Mjolnir again, swung and let it fly, let it carry him down the street and through the mild sting of glass of a storefront window. He rolled, the crimson fabric wrapping about his shoulders, flying back as Thor launched himself to his feet again, the glass that had been caught up in it scattering. Above, he could hear them, crawling across the windows and tearing pieces of the building out with their hands. Holding the hammer high, the thrum of lightning coursed through his arm as it struck the rooftop, the metal skeleton of the building an amplifier for the electricity. They fell then, in a heap outside the broken window, a crisp smell radiating from the lifeless bodies as he sighed, let the hammer fall and bump against his leg, listening to the sounds of footsteps, of rocket boots, as the others convened in the street.

They all looked to him with the same expression, wondering if that was the last of their underground visitors, all tense and peering over their shoulders, still anticipating another attack.

The Captain jumped, nearly out of his boots, as another body appeared, slapping the ground hard with its metal coverings, seeming to have shown up out of nowhere. Thor smiled, recognizing the trick as Loki seemed to step out of a hole in the air.

"Can we just call it a day?" Tony grumbled, dropping to the ground and lying flat on his back. "I'm beat."

The God of Thunder said nothing, paid the others no mind as they told the Iron Man to get up off his ass in case of another wave of monsters. He looked to his brother, visibly bothered by the fact that there was such a bloody mess on the ground, if not by the obviously severed strap of one of his bracers.

"Mother was right," Thor said with an obvious smile, and Loki grimaced, scoffing and eventually throwing the thing as far down the street as he could. "You were born for greatness."

It all seemed to stop then, his breathing, the sounds of his friends' voices, the light in his brother's eyes that were now fastened to him. A stone appeared in the pit of Thor's stomach, the realization of what he'd done suddenly dawning upon him. Loki hadn't known, probably hadn't been meant to know, that the words spoken to him by the gruff Odin had never even been his own; that they had been designed by another, by their mother, passed along and used as a means to give him the thing he'd been craving for years. The Allfather's recognition. Thor flinched, having been oblivious to any and all sound, only starting when Loki shoved him.

"What?" he demanded, and there was a break in his tone. Thor stumbled back again. "Say that again! Say it!"

His fingers curled into now heated palms, a chill running through his bones as he bowed his head. "I didn't... I meant–"

"Don't give me excuses, Thor! You said exactly what you meant!" Another shove, this time lacking any fight at all. Loki was grasping at straws again, getting desperate. He hated watching this, hated seeing Loki struggle to piece things together, particularly his emotions. "How long have you kept this from me?!"

The god could feel the others stare and licked his lips. It was no use lying now. He'd already gone and slipped up. Even so, his mouth was bone dry.

Thor's hand was briskly slapped away as he reached for his brother, wishing he'd had enough sense to keep his blasted mouth shut as Loki had always told him to. He squeezed his eyes closed, wished the world would just fade away, that he'd wake up at home without any knowledge of Midgard; that he'd just listened to what his friends had said when they'd told him to put revenge for his coronation ceremony out of his mind. There would be no Jane, no Avengers, no damned invasion force looming on the planet's doorstep, and certainly no reason for Loki to mistrust him, if not hate him. But there could be no changing the present.

He swallowed, content to stare into the darkness of his own mind as Loki grabbed him. Maybe this would be it for him, for all of them. Maybe Loki would go ahead and snap his neck beneath the heel of his boot.

The ground vanished from beneath his feet, and Thor felt as though he'd been sucked into the Bifrost again, left to flounder in the dead void of space before touching down again, falling flat on his back and staring dazedly up into the sky as the others huddled around him, all with the same expression. If they had to, they'd fight his brother again, but not a one of them hoped for the opportunity.

 _"I warned you, Thor."_  Thor gagged, immediately retracting the previous thought that he'd be left alone with a broken neck. The way his brother was looming over him now, hands set about his throat and seething, Thor thought he might just do it.  _"I told you not to lie to me."_


	26. Conviction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Apocalypse, Please" by Muse.

There was a piece of parchment, buried somewhere in the corners of his mind, where the record was kept, where every little transgression and falsehood was etched out in a thick black ink. A testament to how many times he'd lied, when, why, and the rest of that classic wrap. All his excuses, his thinly-veiled reasons, objectives, and the like. Everything, all rolled up and written upon a single, endless sheet of paper, the edges not the least bit damaged, frayed, or even burned. How could it be? They defined him, the lies, the title, just as they always had. The God of Mischief. The Prince of Lies, of Darkness. The Trickster. Yet there was one thing upon that great and ever-growing list that was not, and could not truly be accounted for: From whence had the name come?   
  
Surely, righteous Odin and fair Frigga had not laid by choice such a dark role upon the shoulders of the child who, as they had so foolishly believed, would become renowned as the great kings of the past, become a symbol of light and prosperity for the Aesir and their kingdom. Perhaps the Tree, what with its infinite knowledge and the power of Fate at its command, had bestowed it upon him before his very creation; had held that mantle in check within its many roots for centuries, even millenia, at a time before casting the would-be bearer into the frost of Jotunheim, into the arms of a man at war's end who would come to care relatively little for him and his success as the years wore on.   
  
To anyone else, such a knowledge of so much evil would have eaten them from the inside out. Damaged them the way a week in the sun would the soft red flesh of an apple left without nourishment. But it was what he had been meant to become. His destined path across the universe, to bring chaos and spread discord, fear, death. To exploit vulnerability, take full advantage of it and turn it, twist until it had become another tool fashioned for only his hand to control. He had been meant to champion entropy across a cosmos so dedicated to fragile stability. To flourish in madness, in the disintegration of command and decree, to cause the stars to rattle and break as the very ground beneath his feet tore itself apart.  
  
How far he must have fallen to come to fear a being far less dedicated to destruction than he; to crawl about upon the earth of the most pitiful of the Nine Realms, allow himself to rely upon creatures far weaker than himself for aid; to think that, for even a fleeting second, were there no place else in the Nine Realms, this planet could somehow become something like home.   
  
It was nothing less than a disgrace to the purpose of his very existence.  
  
Beneath him, the other should not have lay so still. Thor, with all the grace and patience and subtlety of a bilgesnipe, should not have allowed this madness to go on. Why, he, being so much stronger, should have lashed out, caught him hard in the jaw and reversed their roles; should have taken to being the brute that he had always been in Asgard, stubborn and stupid and deaf to any and all reason. But he just lay there, gathering dirt and gravel in his hair, staring up at Loki with the same eyes as when he'd been in the custody of SHIELD all that time ago, looking betrayed and broken as the trickster had lied straight to his face.   
  
"Why didn't you tell me?!" he shouted, and cursed the weakness that so easily betrayed him. The distinct cracking in his voice as though he'd stood on the mountaintop and screamed for hours. "Why?!" Thor's head hit the ground, his mortal friends, though visibly disturbed and angered, jumping back as a thick line of flame cut them off from the brothers. They were, and always had been, the enemy. Their interference would not be tolerated again. "Why would he... lie...?"  
  
A better idea would have been to demand to know when Odin  _hadn't_  lied to him. Everything he'd ever deemed important in his life, save this dedication to mischief which was truly and rightfully his own, had been fabricated in one way or another. And it was dreadfully shameful that Loki, being the personification of discord, had failed to recognize the signs of the craft in which he so excelled.   
  
Thor, rather visibly, bit back a cough, set his jaw as though he refused to speak. The gesture was like throwing gasoline upon an open flame, hoping that, by some miracle, the sparks would just give in and die out.   
  
Loki knew he couldn't hit him, at least not with enough force to do any good. Maybe to make the other angry enough to strike back, push him over, tell him what a godawful idiot he was being, but nothing more. Their objectives would keep on butting heads like this, regardless of the time or the place, and until one of them caved and decided to put an end to this madness, they weren't like to get anywhere of merit. And, if nothing else, Loki would prove that he was every bit as stubborn as Thor.   
  
"You don't know," he scoffed. It was bait, and knowing Thor, he'd go chasing after it once there was enough on the hook. "See, this is why I keep telling you mind your own affairs. Otherwise, you go and make unnecessary trouble for everyone. Like an idiot."  
  
"I'm not an idiot," Thor grumbled.   
  
"Of course, you are," Loki snickered, and slapped Thor's stubbled cheek. "Perhaps I should start to read off the list for you. Remind you of all your innumerable, ridiculous mistakes. Why, I could fill a library with all your grievances. Starting with the worst of them all: Falling in love with a mortal woman." Thor stared, eyes blank. "Oh, that reminds me... Do you know where she is, Thor? Are you sure she's  _safe?_  Even...  _alive?"_  
  
Thor hit him then, the force of the fall enough that he imagined that he'd never been given lungs with which to breathe, the God of Thunder snarling about how he didn't mean it, how he had never meant any of the terrible things he'd said. But how could Thor know, being so pure and innocent, untouched by darkness save nightfall? He couldn't have known anything save it belong to Odin's domain, full of life and love rather than an unyielding desolation.   
  
"Don't worry, Thor. I promise... I'll kill her slowly."  
  
"You do not lie as well as you once did, Brother." That confidence in Thor's tone was detestable. "You know as well as I that those words are untrue. Why, you could have killed Darcy, killed Jane, killed any one of us since you've been back... and I have not once seen that hatred in you."  
  
Thor didn't know anything, he told himself. It was always pretending with him, a great show, fitting himself to the role of the would-be king as per Odin's grand design. A light to burn away all the darkness that Asgard knew was waiting to cut them all apart. But the question was, when? How much longer would he have to wait before he could wipe those smiles away, snuff out the fire in their eyes, the will to live and fight on? Surely, it could not be now. Not with Thor here and all his flimsy, infinite wisdom. Not when he was, again, outnumbered, what with the lot of them knowing far too much as it was. It had to be by surprise, a complete and utter shock to them as it had been before. But it would be so very different this time, for they would all die, and Thor would watch them.   
  
Loki was let go as Thor stepped off, stood back and watched him, always pleading with that useless silence of his; with those eyes. Maybe that's where he would start. Prevent Thor from seeing anything more once his precious friends had lent their blood to the start of the sheep's slaughter.   
  
The other faltered, took a hurried step forward as Loki swept himself away with a smile.   
  
 _"You lack conviction."_  
  
Did he, now? The God of Mischief had remembered that which they had not. The most crucial piece upon the board, still hiding in plain sight right where he had left it last: Sitting on the polished glass dining table in Thor's quarters. It had been all but given to her with wrapping paper and a bow, and she had forgotten it.   
  
How funny it would be, Loki thought, to see the look on the assassin's face when she realized that she had unwittingly let him keep the Tesseract.   
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
It was like a roller coaster. Up and down and circling right back around in an endless loop, the same damn stretch of insane track becoming more and more tiring the longer one was on board. To say that it was madness didn't even seem appropriate anymore. This was something far more than that, than anything the lot of them had ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Though there was no certain way to express the scenario, it was certainly looking very bleak now, what with the sound of every passing airline above their heads bringing them all to turn their eyes skyward, startled and fearful that, the very next time, it might not be that familiar bird-like shape passing by. Why, one of these days, it would be a great black mass, like a looming thunderhead, arriving to stamp out humanity and send their steadily breaking team into overdrive.   
  
All they had done was fight, for what seemed like hours on end. The news station on the television crackled with poor audio from an amateur video of the fight, the Chitauri bursting out of manholes in the street, disrupting traffic, assaulting families and even small children before the Captain rushed down the street, running across the tops of cars and taxi cabs to prevent another mass slaughter. Even so, not a one of them, save Thor himself, paid that scene any mind, their voices so mingled that he could not tell who was arguing with whom. The archer and assassin were probably a given, considering all the tension that had passed between them these last few years, and Thor wished he hadn't picked them out in his mind, remembering the accusations that had been slung about so easily as the hawk's arrows. Words about his brother.   
  
It wouldn't have mattered otherwise, he realized, for Loki was all that had been occupying his thoughts for days. It was in him to worry for the other, as though it had been code written straight into his DNA, a part of him so lasting and so small that he could never hope to escape it. Like his place as Odin's son. A prince, the would-be king of Asgard once his father found a moment in which to proclaim him such. What a grim thought that was, and Thor sighed. To be standing on the steps between two very different doors, one that lead to the kingdom he had always fought for, while the other held that which he had always been designed to protect. To chose one would be to disappoint the other, and while he had lived his life in earnest to prepare for the day when he would take the throne, lead Asgard into a time just as bright as that of Odin's rule, Thor could not feel comfortable with the thought that, were he to accept that role, he would do so by pushing his brother away.   
  
He felt like a traitor, having allowed things to progress this far, though Thor knew that he had never had complete control over every aspect of the situation. Why, with his brother's damned pride and erratic behavior, it was certain that, sooner or later, something like this would have happened anyway. Still, he should have known better than to allow his thoughts to leak out like that, should have remembered that those words exchanged with his mother had been meant to be a secret through a pact left unspoken. And now, he was torn, struggling to determine just how he would go about righting his mistake, assuming he ever saw his brother alive again.   
  
Were the full force of the invasion to come within the next few days, as Tony and Bruce were predicting, he might not have a chance to say that he was sorry.   
  
"It makes sense," the Iron Man said, but Thor did not look up from the floor. "Why would they mobilize and go on the offensive so quickly if reinforcements weren't to be expected for weeks?" The others seemed to quiet down a bit at that, their faces stern as stone. "You don't just take a random shot in the dark and expect to hit the squad you're hunting, unless you know that, once you do, you're gonna have immediate backup."  
  
"So we have maybe a week," Clint commented with a sigh. "Great."  
  
"Not even a week," Bruce corrected, sounding equally as dissatisfied. "If they're this confident, coming right out to challenge us in the middle of the day, and with that kind of ferocity, the rest of the invasion must be close. I'd say less than seventy-two hours, at best."  
  
A glass struck the floor hard, Natasha hopping off the bar stool to grind the heel of her boot into the shards as Tony stood slack-jawed. "Fantastic," she drawled, gritting her teeth. "And our only hope of successfully fending off these bastards just ran off to sulk in some dark corner. Like a coward."  
  
Thor stood from the couch, hands balled into fists and oblivious as Jane tried to get him to sit back down again. Though he would trust these people with his life, Thor knew that he could not count on them to understand anything more than the severity of the invasion. Particularly the things that had transpired between himself and his brother.   
  
Thor knew, more than he wished to, how shocking it must have been, waiting out the days in the hopes that Thanos would forget, travel to Midgard to retrieve the Tesseract and let everything else pass, leave Loki to his own devices and pretend that no bargain had ever been reached. It had taken far longer than a few days of thinking it over to decide that the Avengers, that Thor, had been his best course of action; that, without swallowing his pride, Loki wouldn't likely make it to the end of the year.   
  
"Enough," the god muttered, and the room fell silent. Even the television seemed to hear his voice. "As a whole, the invasion is our priority. But Loki... He is my responsibility."  
  
"Fine! Then be responsible!" Natasha snapped. "You gonna take the beating for him again?! Is that how the two of you work?! He screws us all over, and you make excuses for him?! You take the blame?! If you wanna be a martyr for him, then maybe I should just kick your ass instead!"  
  
"That is not the way of it!" He shouted far louder than he needed to, the floor seeming to rattle as though his voice had become thunder. His brother had done a great number of terrible things, caused thousands to lose their lives in a cruel and untimely fashion. But, at the same time, he'd had Thor's back more times that he dared to count in Asgard; had taken the fall for things that had not been his fault, things that he had greatly opposed while their friends had urged Thor to carry on. He sighed. Loki had been right about one thing. These people, though some of the thunder god's dearest friends, could not hope to understand the complexities that bound the two of them together tighter than blood ever could. And there were no words with which to tell them. "You don't... You don't know..."  
  
They didn't, and they couldn't. Not ever. These friends of his, dear to him as they were, could never comprehend the workings of Odin, of their realm, the many complications that had risen and fallen like the stars over these many years. They couldn't know what Loki had said to him as the floor had been layered with the dark blood of broken enemies, the blood of invaders. Terror, the likes of which he had not seen even as a child, when nightmares flooded their fragile little minds in the depths of night, let alone in the midst of all their many misadventures, wondering whether or not they would return to the warm, golden embrace of their city. It had been pure, raw, unpolluted by pride or clever schemes or sharp words. Just that fear, every bit as exposed as words upon the pages of an open book. And that echo, still ringing in his head, as he sat by and watched the dam break.   
  
 _"I don't wanna die..."_  
  
Thor had sworn on his life, in silence, that he would never utter a word of that moment to anyone. That he would never betray his brother's weakness. If there was anything Loki could not ever have hope to forgive, it was being made out to be weak.   
  
He smiled, albeit sadly. That was why he could not find it in himself to forgive their father. Odin had damaged Loki's pride, impressed upon him the idea that he was somehow inferior to Thor.   
  
"Look, Sparky." Tony clapped him on the shoulder, looking back at the bar to the others as though expecting some kind of encouragement. When he did not receive it, the man scoffed, turned back to Thor and smiled as sincerely as he could. It was a lousy attempt, for he appeared worn out and miserable. "Understand me when I say that you will never again hear these words out of my mouth." Thor nodded. A sigh. "Whatever the two of you have going on between you, it's not really my business. His personal vendetta against you isn't my concern, and I don't really care about it." The billionaire straightened up then, now every bit as serious as the rest of them. "But if he takes another shot at us, comes and stabs us in the back, tries to take our home... Well, that is my business, and I  _will_  do something about it."  
  
The rest of the Avengers nodded in agreement.  
  
How badly Thor wanted to promise them all that it would not come to that. But he could not be sure, could not find it in himself to swear that Loki wouldn't blow this all out of proportion, strike back against the planet, the people, again in an effort to snuff the God of Thunder out.   
  
"I will not speak for my brother," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. He could not step out-of-bounds again. "But I will promise you that I will do everything that I can to end this peacefully."  
  
Though he spoke the truth, spoke it from his heart, Thor could not help the sour taste that lingered in his mouth.   
  
There was no way that this would end with peace.


	27. Strike A Match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Closure" by Chevelle.

Three days, he had searched the skies from his perch upon the branches of the Tree, and, at long last, he had found it, cruising among the stars as though it were naught but an ocean. In moments, he had settled himself aboard, attracting the leering eyes of silver monsters what probably wanted to strip him of his flesh. Quite fortunately, they didn't. Simply allowed his passage and set to leading him down the winding halls.  
  
It was so much darker than he remembered, and, though he had only ever been aboard the craft but a single time, his steel trap of a mind had captured every detail, right down to the number of steps needed to reach each door down the long corridor. As before, the hallway was dimly lit with lithe blue lights at the base of the walls, causing the shadows to flicker and dance as though by firelight, and Loki could feel his heart pounding, hard enough to beat a hole right through his chest, as the audible hiss of the door cut through his head like a hot blade through butter.  
  
They couldn't know about his bluff. Not yet. Not until it was settled.   
  
Though incredibly nervous, his appearance was kept up, though not without great effort, the door sliding shut again as he was pushed forward, turning back only to catch the godawful monster in the head with a blade of his own before daring to peer towards that looming figure perched like a king upon his throne. There was an eerie gleam in his eyes as the god forced a smile, the cockiest expression he could muster. The creature before him was not Odin, nor anything like him. He was cold, calculating, far more driven in his endeavors than the Allfather could have been, and all because of the evil that so clearly burned beneath his skin. Peel flesh away, the trickster thought, and there would only be a mass of darkness where there ought to have been bone and blood and sinew. Wicked, straight to the core.   
  
Behind him, the Other circled the room, peering at him from beneath that hood, teeth bared in a low growl as the God of Mischief refused the unspoken instruction to kneel. A tool he may have been, though only for a time, but he was certainly no servant. He who embodied chaos in all its many forms. He who had shaken the foundations of the Aesir realm, and torn down the might of the Frost Giants, though they had been, by blood, his kin. There was no such thing as loyalties, save to oneself, this far into the game; into the fray. Fleeting, temporary alliances, perhaps, but not loyalty. Loki had had his fill of chains.   
  
"You will forgive me," he said, speaking slowly, "for taking so very long." Thanos' gaze seemed to harden, grow more impatient with the passing of seconds. "Or you will not. So long as you uphold your end of this bargain, I cannot say that I particularly care."  
  
It struck the floor with a strange sound as it fell from its position in the air, like that of footsteps upon the shimmering expanse of the Bifrost, tipping over with momentum before finally coming to a halt. Any outrage that would have been directed towards him was immediately dispelled, the Titan's eyes moving back and forth for a moment before focusing solely upon the cube. Loki smirked, marking down the revelation as nothing short of a success, jerking the thing up and into the air again, moving it about with a hand before it came to rest squarely in his palm.   
  
"Consider it yours." The god smiled. "But, now that I have granted you your deepest desire, I expect that  _my_  troops will now be dispatched to Midgard in full, yes?" Loki sighed, watched as the light within the cube began to pulse slightly. "And you had best call off your hunt for me, as well. It has been nothing short of...  _irritating_  to be killing them off like roaches every few days, as I work to get things done."  
  
The Other hissed, seized him by the arm and yanked. Loki's first thought was to shoot him full of holes.   
  
He had never seen this creature's eyes; only teeth and a brutish snarl. There had never been any reason to fear him, not without much thought and imagination, unless those swift visions had actually been memories of suffering. If so, he had not known to truly fear the Other until the day he had made such rash threats; detailing his master's violent tenacity in a manner so subtle that Loki's wandering mind had been left to conjure those same fleeting glimpses of the dark, the fire in his blood, the stunning blue and white light as he was shoved through a spinning door across the expanses of space.   
  
"You want it, yes?" The Other's gaze should have burned holes though that damn hood. "Then take it."  
  
As quickly as Thor's lightning would have struck the head of the hammer, the cube was gone, swiftly stolen from his grip and secured within a small, transparent container, the blue-white light bending within the glass and bounding across the expanse of the room.   
  
Loki had never imagined such a sight, having only ever seen the Titan looking as though he'd been in a right foul mood for quite some time. But, in that gently flickering glow, there came a smile. That sort of devilish grin that the God of Mischief had all but invented as a boy, and it startled him to no end to see it plastered upon the face of a being that, even at that moment, held power enough to frighten him. With eyes passing from the cube to the god, the Titan laughed softly, gestured out the wide windows of the room that stared out into the great sea of stars.   
  
"Take them," he said, and Loki knit his brow. He had not anticipated Thanos to keep his word, and had thus expected to end up dirtying his hands again. "The war awaits you, Asgardian."  
  
That wasn't nearly as pleasant as he had expected it to be. He should have soared, felt as though he'd climbed to the highest branches of the Tree, as though the entirety of the cosmos were under his control, that nothing could escape his glance. It should have been pride that thrummed through him, rattled his bones like the electric sound of roaring thunder on another rainy, lonely day. A natural high, everything in him firing off waves of excitement. But it was strangely empty, shockingly devoid of any satisfaction or meaning. It was there, the words, the knowledge that he had saved himself from another bout of the Titan's blistering rage and torment, but at the same time it was not. Just a dull echo, as though his mind could not tell whether or not it was a dream.   
  
When he looked up, the stars were there to greet him, the silvery pathway standing still beneath his feet, the ship nowhere to be found.   
  
There was only relief then. No sign of Thanos coming back, having caught him in the lie. Yet.  
  
What were they all doing? Probably sitting around as they always did, fighting with one another and getting nothing done, even when the purpose of their meeting was to make progress in combating the onslaught that was certain to come storming across their skies. They were his armies now, though it was certain that Thanos would remain long enough to watch the mortals burn. Punishment for defying him. Yet the thought of their planet, that was now rightly his for the taking, setting off smoke as people were crushed and beaten and dying, was somehow appalling all of a sudden. He held no fondness for such a base ball of dirt, but still the thought could not be shaken.   
  
In the darkness he stood, quiet, alone, left to his own tumultuous thoughts. But there was no solitude in anything Loki told himself; in any reason he spat up with which to justify all this. There was no peace within the caverns of his mind even as he drew breath that should never have come to him. Just an emptiness, as though the world had dropped out beneath his feet, the contents of his stomach vanishing like dust and ash upon the wind.   
  
Under his breath he whispered, grit his teeth. Whatever they were, Loki could not hear them, had not realized that they had been pushed out by his otherwise occupied mind.   
  
But, if nothing else, he knew those unknown words were meant for Thor.  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
He twisted, hard breaths escaping him as he fell from the couch, eyes shooting open wide to find the cold black floor of Tony's living room beneath his flushed skin, his sweaty shirt. The room was quiet, the only light coming from the large windows as the moon peered through the glass, allowing him to see some of the others lying on the rug beneath the dining room table or slumped over in chairs or at the bar. They had gotten to drinking, he remembered, in an effort to drown out the depression that had settled in so many hours ago. It had been this way for the past three days, Thor recalled, since he had chosen to play the defender in the verbal war against his again missing brother. At the start of each warm evening, the lot of them would convene at the tower for drinks and games and television programs that the God of Thunder still had some difficulty understanding. And, once the night was gone and morning had come, they would go their separate ways and start the process all over again the following night.   
  
With a quiet groan, he sat upright, noting that Jane lay on the opposite end of the large sectional couch, both her and Thor's jackets draped over her like blankets as she slept. He jumped with a start, nearly began shouting as she immediately ceased, stone still and as dead as the furniture that was spread about the penthouse. On his knees, Thor moved towards her, raised a hand with which to touch her shoulder before looking back to the others, noting that they were all in the same state. Still, silent, with no sign of life or breathing.   
  
Across the room Thor moved in sock feet, afraid to make a sound and just as fearful of touching any one of them in case this was some nightmare in which they shattered into pieces beneath his fingertips. There came a light then, like a pillar of fire from outside the window, and as he peered over his shoulder towards the patio, Thor could not believe his eyes. On the far side of the city, close to the bridge, a skyscraper promptly dropped like a tower of wooden blocks, dust flying up into the air as smoke began to rise, flame licking the skyline of the bay.   
  
The glass door was shoved aside, almost hard enough to send it flying off its track as Thor rushed out onto the patio, gripped the railing and stared. It must have been a dream, he told himself until the sound of shuddering breaths reached his ears. Turning, Thor expected to see Jane, Tony, or any of the others looking upon the sight with just as much horror as that which filled him.   
  
His heart stopped dead in his chest like a car that had suddenly run out of gas.   
  
"Loki..."  
  
His head was bowed, eyes shut in a purposeful effort to avoid looking at Thor. Behind him, the God of Thunder could see them slinking about in the shadows, the metallic beasts as they crept about the penthouse and collected his friends, all stone still and silent. He took two steps forward, cringed, and stepped back, the point of a spear having found the hollow of his throat.   
  
"What are you–"  
  
"I have to," he murmured, and Thor flinched, the sound of another distant explosion echoing across the city. "I have to do this..."  
  
Thor shook his head. "No. No, call them off." He tried to force a laugh, pretend this was all just a bad joke, another harmless trick. "It's... We can still fix this..."  
  
Loki groaned, still refused to look up even as Thor shoved the weapon aside and grabbed him, still pleading.   
  
"I'm sorry... You trusted me... and I failed you..."


	28. Forked Tongues, Faux Sermons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Cold" by Aqualung.

His head throbbed, the ache almost blinding as he cracked his eyes open, stared dazedly up and into the darkness. The air around him was almost stale, hot, as though this were the blistering summer weather of Southern California in the middle of June. He hadn't felt that in a while, and after having lived a number of years going back and forth between East and West coasts every few weeks or so, he no longer had quite the same desire to go back to beautiful Malibu. Rolling onto his side, he saw glass, the thick kind with the barely visible smears of hand prints upon it. On the outside, there were dim blue lights, set into the walls no higher than his ankles would have reached and, against the far wall, there was a shadow, the eyes staring at him with a soft and weary gleam through the dark.   
  
Groaning, he looked away, turned to the other side and saw the others, save Bruce, scattered about the wide expanse of the container, noting that Pepper hovered over him worriedly while the rest of them seemed to only glare.   
  
Tony sat up. "Oh, God," he muttered, rubbing his forehead. Had he been drinking the night before? For the life of him, Tony couldn't remember. Was it even morning? If so, perhaps this was a hangover. "Where the hell are we?"  
  
"Trapped." The word was sharp, loud, having bounced off the walls with a distinct ringing that tore through his skull. His eyes moved towards the sound, caught sight of the red hair that radiated with the same blaze as her temper, the woman's thin brows meeting at the point above the bridge of her nose, a statement that she was in a positively foul mood. "Like rats," she added, biting her lip hard. "Payback."  
  
That said a lot, the Iron Man realized, and sat up, Pepper's arm draped about his shoulders as he wobbled, leaned back against the glass behind him and sighed. A cage, not unlike those that had been used by SHIELD, those meant to detain and potentially kill. A fall from thirty thousand feet or even suffocation by gas, by extreme heat, and various other chemical methods that Tony could have listed in great detail. It really did seem like reparation for his own confinement, Tony realized, and forced himself to turn, stare at that shadow on the wall just as the god let out a slow breath and looked away.   
  
He was unusually quiet, not seeming to be the least bit interested in correcting the assassin or even silencing her. Maybe he was bored, or just stuck, not knowing quite what to do with them now that they were all stripped of their weapons, their naturally gifted comrades. Maybe, Tony thought, he hadn't dared to imagine that things would progress this far.   
  
"Where the hell are Bruce and Sparky?"  
  
"I'd rather know," Pepper breathed, peering out of the glass, "what happened to my baby."  
  
Tony was on his feet then, eyes like flint as he slammed a fist against the glass, teeth clenched as he sought to fight off the myriad of dark thoughts that pervaded his mind. It wasn't the baby's fault he didn't know anything, that he made messes, that he couldn't go more than a few hours each night without crying for food and comfort. That was just the way of things. Infants were small, innocent, helpless, and Tony didn't want to think on the things that could have happened to his son; to the giggling baby boy that, as he grew, would hopefully be able to experience the moments with his father that Tony had not been quite so blessed with.   
  
It was only then that the god stirred, threw his head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, perhaps reluctant to venture a response.   
  
"He serves no purpose."  
  
"Then where is he?!" Pepper shouted, and Tony cringed at the booming echo. She was crying, eyes wide and red, her fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist. "What did you do with my baby...?"  
  
"Nothing. He is as you left him. Home, asleep."  
  
She sighed, legs falling out from beneath her as Tony held her up a moment, lowered her gently to the floor again as Pepper curled in on herself and cried in silence. Whatever this was, whatever was going on, Tony knew it to be madness. There was no legitimate motive, at least none that he could conjure, that should have led to all of this. And even if there was purpose to all this, method to this insanity, it was still not excusable. He swallowed, noting that there were no windows within the room nor any sign of a door. Just a round room with the glass cage set in the center, set into an indent at least two feet down in the floor. No seam in the transparent barrier that surrounded them, no idea as to where, or even when, they all were.   
  
The gentle sound of humming thrummed through his ears, the melancholy tune of that bizarre Asgardian lullaby that had sent little Bradley off into the world of sleep only weeks before. Though only in passing, Tony had wondered what it all meant, rhymes of a wraith being sung to a child before sweet slumber, dismissing it after a time as nothing more than simple nonsense. But now, as he replayed the words inside his own buzzing skull, he wasn't so sure anymore.   
  
"Does that... mean something?" he asked, back sliding down the glass as he sat.  
  
Without looking back, he could almost see Loki shrug. "It is just a song..."  
  
Tony snorted, smiling. "Right, because every guy I know goes around humming his mother's lullabies at odd moments in the day."  
  
 _"The wraith king takes them slowly, slowly deep into the dark,"_  the god relayed, and Tony stared, wishing he could get that damn tune out of his head.  _"The wraith king steals them only, only after leaving mark. The wraith king, cold and quiet, waits to drag you down. Open, and see the shadows watch the world as it does drown."_  
  
The man stared wide-eyed, felt his jaw drop. Now he obviously wasn't one to give parenting advice to anyone, particularly because his idea of babysitting was putting Bradley to bed before retiring to the couch for scotch and horror films, but Tony was fairly certain that it wasn't exactly healthy to be singing to little children about wraiths that would drag people into the night and kill them. And he would have said as much, too, had they been sitting in his limousine or at a table in one of his luxurious restaurants. But, considering how they were all very obvious captives in this game gone awry, Tony opted for keeping his mouth shut instead of pissing off the prison guard.   
  
"Your people know something of prophecy, yes?"  
  
Tony didn't know if that was a trick question or not. Of course they knew. People had been claiming to have powers to see the future and whatnot for years, since long before the birth of modern society. Hundreds, even thousands, of years into the past. Much of it was documented as well, in myth and legend, passed on by word of mouth and even in scripture. So, yes, he thought it would be safe to say that humans had a pretty decent understanding of prophecy. Tony nodded.   
  
"My mother sees everything," Loki said. "Eventually. Not always when she would like to, or even when she needs to. All she knows is what the Tree chooses to shows her." He gestured, one of the outer walls vanishing completely, leaving Tony to stare through the glass with the others as the stars steadily passed them by.  
  
"Holy shit... Uh, guys..." Tony swallowed, stared out into the dark and sincerely began praying to whatever god would hear him. _"Guys?!"_  
  
Had the hawk and the spider any weapons, he was certain that he'd have ended up with an arrow to the head and a gunshot to the groin. Or the opposite. Either way, the two of them made sounds of irritation, their steps echoing before the archer gasped at the sight and fell back against the glass, smacking his head and swearing. Natasha, on the other hand, charged the barrier and gave it a solid but useless kick, growling under her breath.   
  
"So," Tony muttered, still hoping that he was stone drunk and asleep, "that..." He made a face and waved his hands the way he imagined someone like a witch doctor might. "That... song, or whatever, was some Asgardian prophecy...?"   
  
"Yggdrasil gave to her the song, a warning of what would come. She saw this. All of it. The end of Midgard as it is. As you know it. Its rebirth. And still she could not stop it... No one can."  
  
That sounded ridiculous. Like another half-assed excuse for Loki, or anyone else, to do whatever the hell they wanted without repercussions. Tony scoffed, shook his head, slammed a hand against the glass.   
  
"That... That doesn't mean anything! It's just another line for you to use to excuse yourself, to try and pass the buck!" Tony knew. He'd tried, time and again, to blame someone else for his mistakes years before. To try and excuse his company's constant production of explosives by saying that, if it weren't for terrorists, there wouldn't be any need to continue cranking them out. The fact was, he could have chosen to stop at any time; to put an end to the devices that were so clearly being taken and used against the very people that he was trying to protect. So this, he thought, peering around the room, was nothing but another lame excuse. "I'm not gonna let you rationalize thi, you monster! You're just... toying with people's lives!"  
  
He felt her fingers curl into his sleeve as she pulled him back, eventually shoved him to the opposite end of the container.   
  
"Just keep your mouth shut, Tony," the assassin whispered, peering over her shoulder. The wall was back where it belonged, dark and solid, and Loki was gone. "Don't... Don't say anything that'll make this any worse for us, okay? We'll figure this out." She smiled, forced. "You're a smart guy."  
  
"Yeah," he sighed. "Maybe. But I'd really rather let Sparky and the Jolly Green Giant do all the heavy lifting..."   
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
Needless to say, Thanos had not been the least bit pleased with his lie; with the fact that the cube he had first delivered had been one forged by his hand out of stone and stardust and a bit of well-placed magic. It had been a risky move, but he had not been the least bit willing to take the chance of letting these monsters have their way with him and leave. If they had chosen to betray him, to keep from him the force he had been promised, the God of Mischief would have used their precious cube against them, wiped the lot of them out. Whether or not he was fortunate to have not reached that point, Loki still could not decide. Perhaps he would have been better off with killing Thanos and the Other, taking their soldiers by force to lead them against the mortals. But, as stories always told, where one leader fell, another would rise, full of far more ambition than the last.   
  
Upon being granted the artifact in its true form, the Titan had stayed his rage, and without a word. It couldn't have hurt when Loki had informed him prior that he had brought to him the mortals who had stolen the Tesseract away in the first place. Following that, there had been no exchange of any kind as the Other had silently ushered him towards the door.   
  
Then, he was upon Midgard again.  
  
He was bowed over, hands held in place by chains, by spells, his eyes closed as lose golden hair stuck fast to his forehead. It didn't matter how long Loki sat there and stared at him, Thor didn't move. So he shifted, moved from one end of the room to the other, trying to find something with which to distract himself. Maybe the baby would wake and start crying from down the hall, demanding to be held or fed or just granted some manner of attention and affection. Perhaps something from the hellish onslaught outdoors would come soaring through the wide windows, skidding across the floor and causing him to wonder just how he might go about explaining the tower's damage to the likes of Tony Stark. The god smiled, noting what a humorous thought that was. He had delivered the Avengers and their friends to the Titan, had left them all there to be punished for their defiance, to die as their world burned. Thor had been the only one he had held back, the only one whom he would not allow Thanos to touch, for that vengeance belonged to him alone.   
  
The child began to wail then, screaming as the sound of a collapsing building filled the penthouse. He must have sounded like that once, Loki thought, knowing only fear, mindlessly crying for a mother that would not come. But she had come, hadn't she? Not at once, but in the days following his arrival in Asgard. When he had been wrapped in soft cloth and kept a secret from all until a plausible story could be formed. A story that Loki himself still did not know. Perhaps they had told the people that she had been ill, afraid that the second child of herself and Odin would be stillborn, and had thus kept him heavily guarded and concealed.   
  
Thor's breaths were still, slow, as though he had fallen fast asleep. But his eyes, though lidded, were open, appearing worn and tired, and Loki couldn't stand to look at him. He could only lean over in the chair that he had finally settled into, listen to the gentle clacking of the chains as the other shifted slightly. How the god hated that damned sound; the sound of lost freedom. A lie, he had called it, in his first waking moments of desperation. Foolish.   
  
"Do you..." The words were sour on his tongue. He could not even bring himself to speak Thor's name. "Do you hate me?" What was this? Why should he have cared? For all this time, Thor had been naught but his enemy, a brother only within the confines of a lie. Still, Loki felt compelled to ask, to know. "I wouldn't blame you if you did... But it's your fault, too," he laughed quietly. "You keep trusting me, expecting me to act according to your standards, your will...!"  
  
The God of Thunder said nothing.   
  
"It's almost...  _funny_. One would think that, of all the members of your motley crew, you would have been the first that I handed over. The first to receive punishment." Loki laced his fingers. "And yet, here you are. All... caught up. Safe and sound while the rest of them await their fate..."  
  
He shifted slightly, perhaps drew sharp breath as he stiffened, his golden hair appearing to stand on end as though it were imbued with the stark shock of lightning. But Thor still did not look up, and he did not speak.   
  
"You're doing this on purpose," Loki sighed. "Trying to guilt me, aren't you?"  
  
Silence.   
  
The god stood, wished that there were something nearby that would merit a kick solid enough to send it flying across the room. Perhaps a potted plant would do.   
  
"Wh-What do you want from me, an apology?! You know better than to ask for  _that_ , Thor! You know I can't–"  
  
Thor was on his feet then, still threatening though his hands remained bound. He frowned, took two steps across the room and slammed his shoulder up against Loki, catching him off balance.   
  
"Tell me but one thing, brother!" How Thor still had the nerve to call him that was startling. "Why would you take them from me?! Is it not enough that you already seek to drive a wedge between us?!"   
  
Why  _had_  he gone to all this trouble again? For the life of him, Loki couldn't remember, if only for that moment. There were only Thor's words ringing in his head as he searched for an answer, abruptly remembering as another massive cloud of heavy gray smoke flew up in front of the window. He hadn't wanted to be caught up in all this madness, to be the target of a mass assassination that would be carried out by the monsters that ravaged the city. He hadn't wanted to be hiding in the dark when they came, tearing open the earth to find him.   
  
But more than all that, Loki hadn't wanted to die.   
  
"You really are a fool!" Loki shot back, and tried to shove him. He grit his teeth. "Your only fear was being trapped on this worthless planet, to never again see the realm that has only ever belonged to you!"   
  
Thor couldn't have known what it meant to be possessed by terror. To wait out the hours of each day in hopes that the next light of dawn would not be the last.   
  
But he was safe now. Granted the security that he always should have had; that which he never should have bargained for.   
  
Outside, the smoke kept coming, piling up in the darkened sky as fire raged and continued to kiss the edge of the skyline. Within the penthouse, he could smell it, the heat, the scent of collapsing buildings and torn up streets rising on the steady wind. The people would be burning next, he thought. Their flesh charred and stripped utterly away, bones reduced to naught but crumbling bits of charcoal. They would soon become lost, the people of this great Midgardian city. Artifacts left to be consumed by time, to bear testament to the infinite foolishness of humanity. A witness of his triumph... and his fall.   
  
"Loki..." He looked up. "Let me go..."  
  
His gaze fell, faded along with the thunderer's own, a soft groan escaping parted lips. Loki stared at the floor for a time before giving in, allowing himself to finally drop at Thor's side as though this were not a war, but the grassy fields outside Odin's palace. They had escaped there far too often to hide out, keep far and away from the mundane goings on of parties and seemingly empty celebrations that held no allure for two growing and eager young boys so addicted to violence.   
  
"Thor..."  
  
There was no response.   
  
"I know... you may not be able to forgive me..." This, Loki knew, was madness. And, at first, there had been a genuine method, a means, an objective woven deep into the threads of this spiraling tapestry. To satisfy himself, obtain that which he had never known by Odin's hand. That strange manner of affection, of pride, that even the writhing infants of Midgard were graced with daily. But all this, watching the world burn, was not quite so thrilling as it had once been. "But I... It was all I could do to keep them from..."  
  
If nothing else, he had only ever feared the thought of being forgotten. The traditional processions of a warrior's sending, of being set alight by flame in a ship upon the open sea, devoured and, eventually, pushed out of Asgard's collective mind by death.  
  
"Loki..." Thor nudged him with the side of his head as he lifted his bound hands, pleading again with his eyes. "Once more is all I ask. One last venture into the fray...  _together._ "


	29. Disguises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Brothers" by Michiru Oshima.

"I feel like shit, you know?" he said, and ignored the soft brush of her hair against his cheek as Pepper leaned against his shoulder. "Not just because of all this..." Tony gestured at the barrier, rapped on it with a hand.   
  
Yeah, this was all a pain in the ass, he thought. Being stuck in a container like a fish out of water, out of its environment, floating about on some unknown aircraft through the darkness of space, far and above the planet, away from home. It was borderline terrifying, really. But the thing that kept on scaring him, he realized, was the same damn thing that had had Pepper crying a river into his shirt not long before. The thought, the very real possibility, that their son might have to grow up seeing his parents in photographs, on television documentaries rather than up close and personal. That Bradley might not have the chance to hear his father say that he was important, that he was loved. Just like Tony.   
  
Maybe, because of his own lack of parental affection as a boy, he'd grown up selfish, content in doing whatever the hell he felt like just because he could. For years now, he, the great Tony Stark, had been more than happy to spit in the face of the government, of those who would dare to tell him what he could and couldn't do; what was and what was not appropriate for a man his age. Truth be told, he'd been happy going on like that for a while, thinking that he had nothing and no one to lose up until his little three month field trip into the desert. Watching innocent men fight and die for nothing, realizing that, at any given moment, he could lose his company, his friends, the woman he had never admitted to loving. That couldn't happen to his boy, he thought. The generations had to continue growing, becoming better until, in the end, all the world could do was try to cite the mistakes of the past as ammunition.   
  
He was going to get out of here, Tony decided, and he was going to watch his son grow up, guide him until he was every bit as perfect as Pepper herself. That teetering, drooling little mass of peach fuzz and mindless love had one hell of a brain in that soft head of his, and Tony would be damned if he sat on his ass and all but handed his son over to be raised by someone else.   
  
His head began spinning, the wheels and gears cranking as he cast his eyes about the room. There wasn't even a sign of a seam in the glass, of a door. Probably sealed by alien technology or mischievous Asgardian magic, he imagined, and grit his teeth in frustration. If he had anything at all, a cell phone, even one of the identification bracelets from the Mark VII suit, he could probably get word out to Jarvis or even to Rhodey, have one of them program the suit and have the thing fly itself through the ship so they could get the hell out of here.   
  
"Where the hell is Banner?"   
  
"Separate containment unit," Natasha replied, tapping her foot. "Otherwise, we'd be out of here by now."  
  
Tony groaned loudly, clapped a hand over his mouth once he realized that Pepper had fallen asleep. "Well, shit," he huffed. "What about Sparky? Any sign of him?"  
  
The assassin shook her head slowly. "Not since we were at the tower," she sighed, the scowl on her face stating that the woman was absolutely livid. "My guess is that our little  _friend_  is busy taking care of him..."  
  
What an idiot he was for not having thought of that himself. This had all started out as a feud between brothers, after all, and it only made sense to say that Loki wouldn't lay them all to rest until his grudge against Thor had been satisfied. If that was even possible. The guy had carried on quite the temper tantrum over the past few years.   
  
"Everybody has skeletons in their closet," the archer quipped and shrugged, earning a venomous look from Natasha. "It's normal..."  
  
"That isn't what we're talking about, Clint."   
  
Tony leaned back as if to slip through the glass, not wanting to be caught up in the middle of this ex-lover's quarrel gone wrong.   
  
"Everything somehow leads back to him," Clint replied, equally as aggravated. "Haven't you noticed? I mean, for weeks I haven't heard you have a conversation that  _doesn't_  somehow involve him! You're hung up on him, and, for whatever reason, you just can't let go!"  
  
"He betrayed us, and not just once! Or hadn't you noticed that we're stuck in a goddamn cell, waiting for someone, or something, to come and collect us?!"  
  
"That's your fault!" he yelled. "You were the one who decided to play the bleeding heart, try to be best friends with a guy whose only objective was, and still is, sending us all to hell!"   
  
Tony blinked several times, looked back and forth between one and the other, unsure as to whether or not it would be wise to open his mouth. Pepper stirred then, breathed deeply and sat upright, her hand spread out over his own. The hawk and the spider turned to stare, both looking incredibly guilty over the fact that they'd allowed their tempers to get the better of them and that they had awakened an already distressed mother. The archer muttered an apology, and Natasha came to sit beside the pair of them, patting Pepper on the shoulder with a sad gleam in her eye.   
  
She peered around the room, sighing when she realized that they were still trapped, and leaned on Tony again, shuddering as she tried to keep herself from crying all over again.   
  
He wanted to say something meaningful, something that would stop her from worrying, wondering, dreading the things that very well could happen. But the only thing he could do, Tony acknowledged, was to sit there beside her and rock her back and forth.  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
"Let you go?" Loki scoffed. "Do you think me an idiot?"  
  
Thor frowned, watched the gentle, rolling clouds fill in along the deep blue shades of the still dark sky. Steadily, their colors changed, the silver gleam of their outlines fading to a heavy gray, their curves lighting up white as thunder began to roar and lightning sent streaks throughout the city. How tired he was of this, of playing this game, wondering when and where his brother would regain his senses, return to being the man he had been only a few years before. He wanted to know what had happened to Jane, to Darcy, to the rest of his friends. Were they safe? Were they alive? Where had he taken them? How far away were they? How much more time did they have before the vengeful hand of this Titan came down upon them?   
  
This should never have been about the rest of them, Thor thought, and bit his lip. It had only ever been meant to encompass the two of them, to keep himself and Loki caught up within this dangerous dance until such a time as one of them fell or gave in.   
  
He surged forward, sent Loki stumbling to the floor to smack his head against the tile as he seethed, could not hear the cries of the baby as they grew steadily louder. It had taken everything for him to be patient, to hold out vain hope that his brother would see the error of his ways and right his wrongs, return home to happiness and prosperity. But now, the thunderer thought, peering out over the vastness of the city as it began to crumble amid a storm of flame, there was no time for kindness, for charity. Those days were long gone now, and all that was left was to correct the mistakes of the past, to ensure that they would not be made again.   
  
"If I let you go," the trickster shouted, scrambling backwards on the floor. "I know what will come of it! If he does not kill me, then you will! And if not you, then Odin! And let me tell you, Thor," he hissed, raising a hand, "I will not go back to hiding in the dark. I will not be left to rot in a cell!"  
  
"Rather than telling me what you will not have," Thor bellowed, "you had best use that tongue of yours to come up with a solution for this mess that you have made! I have had my fill of your excuses, brother! I have spent far too long waiting for you to do what is right, and this is not the time for another of your foolish games!" They stared at one another until Loki turned to look away. "Now, I shall only ask once more.  _Let me go._ "  
  
The shackles fell to the floor then, dissipating as though they had been naught but dust. Thor rubbed his wrists, his brow drawn into a frown as Loki brushed past him, vanishing before he had chance to turn fully around. He cursed himself, wished that he had ignored the mild irritation of his skin for but a moment longer, wished that he had taken the chance to stop the trickster where he had stood. Thor started then, jumped back a foot as Loki reappeared on the sofa, holding the now smiling baby in his arms.   
  
The child cooed, stretched out his tiny arms in an attempt to grasp the ends of Loki's hair.   
  
“Foolish little thing,” he said, holding Bradley away from himself as though he were a dog riddled with disease. “If only you had the capabilities to understand just what it is that goes on around you. To realize that, come the end, your miserable race will be but dust in the wind, writ and preserved only within history's weave.”  
  
“You focus so intently on one's blood and race,” Thor said with disdain, “as though that alone determines the whole of their worth. But you have not arrived at this place you so detest, this pit of misery and woe, because you are Asgardian, and you do not suffer the weight of your wrongdoings because you are Jotunn. Your choices, brother, have determined your fate. Not the Tree, nor the visions it grants. These we both know you can change.”  
  
The baby fell silent as Loki, still not looking at him, snorted and whispered, “I desire no change.”  
  
“You do not lie as well as you once did, brother.”  
  
“In that case, allow me to speak but truth to you. The only change that I desire is separation from you. I desire the death of this world that you hold so dear. Are you not at all content with that which you have been granted?! A throne, the name of a king, the adoration of the whole of Asgard as well as the people of this pathetic realm?! Why is it that you must demand such mindless worship from me as well?!”  
  
The child wailed, writhing in his arms, and Thor could only stare. He wondered if the baby was a reflection of that which Loki would never allow himself to show.  
  
“I do not–“  
  
“You do!” the trickster snapped. “Time and again, I continue to reject you, your gestures, your empty words. And yet, each time, you return, you entreat! You, the golden Son of Odin, continually parade yourself before me in a vain attempt to regain my regard! You have deluded yourself into thinking that you only aid me with your persistence, but I regard your presence as naught but the burn of the suns of Muspelheim! Were you to truly hold me in any esteem, you would stand down, respect my wishes, and leave me be! But you can't... You think yourself a savior of mankind, some glorified hero... And I am not so weak as to buy into your delusions, grant you the satisfaction of having pulled me from the gates of oblivion. I am not of Asgard, Thor; nor am I of Jotunheim. I am only, in the eternal wisdom of  _your_  father, the enemy. You cannot expect me to change.”  
  
“I do not,” Thor lied. He had only ever wanted Loki to return home, to find prosperity and happiness within the glimmer of their great city. To recognize his mistakes and be sincere in his sorrow, to again be the same as he had once been. That same clever and mischievous brother that he had grown up with. That which, now, lived only within a dream. Thor himself had been rather foolish to carry it on; to refuse to wake up and realize that the past in which he wanted to live was long since gone and ushered away. “I ask only that you help me once more. To correct your mistakes...  _Our_  mistakes.”  
  
Loki growled, shook his head. “It matters not what you say,” he murmured. “I will not regret but a moment of all this... I... I'm not sorry... I'm not. I never will be...”   
  
His feet carried him forward until the baby, still sniffling, bent backwards, hands closing around the loose ends of Thor's golden hair. His own arms moved then, hands settling themselves squarely about Loki's shoulders, reeling him in.   
  
“I'm not sorry...” he choked. “I... I'm not...  _I'm not..._ ”  
  
“I know,” Thor whispered, and smiled gently. “I know...”


	30. Twenty Below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Harvey Two-Face" by Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard. 
> 
> Yes, I know. _The Dark Knight_ music for a Marvel story. Meh.

With every few feet, the air grew colder. The thick, hot haze made no difference, the touch of flame far too easily drowned out as though the iced tundras of Jotunheim had come to rest upon the very face of Midgard. Desolate, destroyed, dull. No color, save that of the things that would only corrupt, toppled buildings and rubble strewn across the landscape. Were the sun to have risen at that moment, it would not have been seen through the smoke, the clouds, the rain that threatened but did not fall. Even the thunder, he noted, somewhat melancholy, had vanished.   
  
Loki would not ask himself how this had happened, for he knew. He had  _wanted_  it to happen. He had planned on it, on knowing that the rest of the world outside this mindless, mundane city would be watching. That they would have their eyes turned to what must have been the very capital of all their ignorance and sin. It would become as every other fallen realm, dead, if not steadily dying. Once the palace walls came crumbling to the ground, returned to the earth as naught but dust from whence they had come, hope would perish as well. They could send in their armies to try and stop him, their pitiful mortal technologies, he had decided. For beings of higher status, such as himself, could not be felled by humans and their reliance upon brute force.   
  
He should have been left behind; left to suffocate in silence as smoke and chemicals flooded through the vents of the penthouse, slipped into his lungs and ushered him quickly to sleep the way that a lullaby played upon ivory keys might have. But, again, the god had been seized by that same otherworldly urge as before, to bring the child with him and, for whatever reason, spare him if only for a moment. No sound came from the infant's mouth but that of loud breathing, those small and fragile hands clinging to him in desperation, seeking safety and comfort even as he slept. Perhaps he was drowning in the dream world, swept up into his mother's arms as the sun grazed their skin. Assuming, of course, children so young as this had imaginations quite so vivid as all that.   
  
Each corner turned amid the masses of rubble and burned bodies was like another heat attack, for Loki found himself expecting to come face to face with Thor again at any given moment. The thunderer had been left behind nearly an hour before, left to wander on his own in confusion. The trickster had no desire to have his hand held with every step he took, nor would he force the same ridiculous gesture upon Thor. Not out of respect, it had to be noted, but of a wish to remain separate and alone. No solace would be found amid this chaos were Thor to be heard plodding about behind him, taking in the sight of destruction and finding only anger, demanding to know what could have possibly possessed him to continue such pointless slaughter.   
  
But that was the thing. The very thing that neither Thor nor Odin could ever hope to comprehend. Within his mind, it was not pointless, but the very point. A gesture of war that far outmatched the brutality of the Jotunns, the cunning of the Aesir. A statement of his intellect, his dedication to proving, to all of them, that they had entered into a fool's game of chance with the devil himself. A game wherein he, as the champion of entropy, would claim victory.   
  
 _"Why would you take them from me?!"_  Within his already tortured mind, Thor could be heard bellowing across the dead and dusky streets, as hidden flame sparked and crackled.  _"Is it not enough that you already seek to drive a wedge between us?!"_  
  
What an idiot Thor was. They shouldn't have mattered to him. The mortals. Without their arrogance to push them to even greater heights of stupidity, what were they but infants? Helpless, empty... worthless. They had to die for balance to begin to be restored. They had to stand as a symbol, a vow of that which would fall upon those who dared defy him again. Those who, like the Aesir, would play him as but the fool.   
  
Perhaps those words would have meant something, the god thought, had they come from but the mouth of another. Not that of his once-brother, his rival, his enemy, but carried upon the melodious voice of the woman whom, he would swear, had all but bled herself for him.   
  
It was a sharp pang that struck him then, full in the chest as he staggered, gripped tighter the child plastered to his arm. The glass and rubble cut hard into the flesh of his hand as he fell, the ground only inches from Loki's wide eyes that, in haste, moved to the infant, still silent and content with his perch in the god's trembling arm.  
  
"What would you have me do?" He grimaced, turned and stared up through the haze of smoke and dust, the faint outline of that sliver of a moon staring right back at him. The Tree was the decider of fates, the writer for the history of all realms. So why, Loki wondered, would he be brought to this, only to be pushed in the opposite direction come the story's climax? "Do I... go back?"  
  
There came a steady hum, rattling his bones and shaking the streets as though the planet were rigged and set to blow. It was like a vicious blow to the head, a dream, watching the sky spiral out of control; soaring into space to see nothing, not even stars. They appeared then, suspended upon thin silver strings that, as he glanced upward, were fastened heavily to the pale bare branches of that which could not be seen. The Tree, building up the cosmos and forging realms out of naught but bits of stardust. They appeared one by one, moving ever towards heaven from Yggdrasil's roots until, up near the white arms so ornately decorated with lush green life, came the spire of Odin's palace, radiant as it had ever been and just within reach.   
  
It slipped away from him then as he fell, head over heels, down the length of the great trunk as the looming figure began to vanish into the dark.   
  
Loki gasped for air, sat upright and found himself right where he remembered. Stunned and out of breath, the child now squirming in his grip as he growled.   
  
"What do you want from me...?! To send me here... and expect me to go back... Just tell me! Where is the sense in all this?!"  
  
The infant whimpered, small body growing rigid as he began to sob, screaming and clinging to Loki's arm. He shouldn't have brought the child with him; should have left him to die in blissful ignorance or just taken him straight to his mother for are.   
  
The god paused, scoffing at the thought as he tried to usher it away. But it would not be chased off, he found, for it seemed to possess a will of its own, content to maintain its place within his skull.   
  
With a sigh, he stood, rocked and shushed the baby in hopes that he would soon be silent.   
  
"Don't cry," he said, and perhaps those words weren't only meant for the child. "Don't cry..."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
Beside her, she could feel him holding fast to her hand, an unspoken promise that he would never again let her go. It had been a little bit of hell each day, she recalled, living that long year without him. The stars had been but her only comfort, knowing that, somewhere high above her head, he was looking back down to Earth, searching for a way to return, to bring them both together again. That idea had kept her going, had kept her spirits high even when everything else around her had threatened to drown it in the oncoming tides.   
  
Shifting, she smiled, managed to squeeze his fingers though she felt incredibly weak. The return gesture, however, was not what Jane had anticipated.   
  
With a start, she sat upright, a loud squeal echoing through the room that could have given any sleeping person a heart attack. Eyes wide, Jane peered about, found herself enclosed in a large glass container with Darcy, who must have screamed, and Steve, who hovered over her and lifted the astrophysicist to her feet.   
  
They stared at one another for a good, long moment before Darcy quieted down and found herself a seat on the floor, flopping over onto one side and drawing her knees to her chest. Jane looked at her with a raised brow, silently questioning whether or not this was some elaborate joke the lot of them had concocted in secret. Why, for all she knew, they had put something in her drink when they had all convened at Tony's for another night of vintage liquor, knocking her out and using the man's vast resources to try and mess with her head. Jane smiled, having convinced herself of this fact, and turned to look at Steve.   
  
"I didn't think you were into this sort of thing," she said with a laugh.   
  
The Captain stared. "What... thing?"  
  
Jane snorted and covered her mouth. "Jokes. I mean, not to say that you aren't funny, because you're really a hoot, but..." She gestured to the glass around them. "Don't you think this is a bit too much? Was this Tony's idea, or–"  
  
"It's no joke, Jane," Darcy quipped, now lying on the floor with her back facing them. Was she crying? "We're really stuck here... with those monsters..."  
  
Her heart stopped dead in her chest, legs steadily giving out and causing Jane to fall back against the glass, sliding to the bottom without once drawing breath. Yes, she had seen the footage of the first attack online, like most people. But she had also seen one of them up close, watched as it had been brutally killed as though it had been naught but plagued vermin. She would not forget the way it had looked at her, at all of them, though neither she nor the Avengers had been the beast's target. They were ugly, she thought, like frightening creatures that would come out of the darkness in the dead of night to haunt the nightmares of children. And now Darcy was telling her that they had been imprisoned by those things?  
  
"When?" she said with a nervous breath. "How?"  
  
Steve shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her shoulders as Jane began to shiver. "I think it was at the tower," he replied in a low voice. That sweet face of his appeared irritated, his light brows almost meeting atop the bridge of his nose. "As for how..." The soldier sighed. "Loki."  
  
Jane shook her head, turning to press her hands against the glass. "What about the others? What about...?"  
  
Thor had to be fine, she told herself. If there was anyone on, or off, the planet who could handle himself, it would have been him. With or without the hammer, she had seen him jump headlong from the frying pan and into the fire. He would be all right, Jane thought. He had to be.  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
It was unbelievable, he thought, and peered through the thick smoke which had risen to even the top of Stark Tower. He didn't know what to feel, what to think, or even what to believe. Their conversation, if one could call it that, had been frighteningly brief, and Thor could not bring himself to shake the idea that Loki had run off to do something horrendously stupid again. Perhaps it bothered him so much because his brother was supposed to be brilliant, the keenest mind in all of Asgard, if not the Nine Realms. And yet, there they were, caught up in the fires of war, searching frantically for some way out of it all. Loki had become ruled by emotion, by his fears, and in a moment of desperation, had dug himself a hole that they were all being sucked into.   
  
This really was all his fault. Not knowing how to keep his mouth shut, failing to remember his promise to their mother. Much of this chaos could have been easily avoided had Thor been more mindful of his tongue.   
  
Thor grimaced, crossed his arms and wondered. This choice had been presented to him time and again, though he had hastily pushed it aside. Fulfill his duty, protect the realms, bring about peace, and all at the very probably cost of killing his brother. Imprisonment, quite clearly, had done nothing to quell the trickster's temper, and that frightened him.   
  
He turned his gaze skyward, eyes swimming.   
  
"Please. Do not let it come to  _that_."


	31. With The River's Flow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Battle Born" by The Killers.

He woke to a scratching sound, lifted his head and opened his eyes, peering around into the darkness. There was nothing, he was glad to find, having feared that one of the Chitauri had come to collect them. On the opposite side of the container, huddled beneath his jacket and fast asleep, lay Darcy and Jane, the student with her head laid upon her friend's shoulder. Sighing, Steve pulled himself to his feet, hands laid flat against the glass as the sound continued. His body rotated, scanning the room outside the cage, squinting into the dark. His eyes widened when, behind the forms of the sleeping women, the Captain spotted something, or someone, staring right back at him with a silvery gaze. Swiftly, he moved across the expanse of the container, slammed a hand up against it, startling the two into wakefulness.  
  
Darcy, still caught up in his jacket, rolled across the floor as best she could, flattening herself against the opposite glass panel as she stared at him, eyes wide as though she were an owl. Jane, on the other hand, rubbed the traces of sleep away with a fist, yawned and lay down on her side.   
  
"Steve? What are you doing?"  
  
The soldier frowned and said nothing, turned and moved back across the small space to lift a now trembling Darcy to her feet. She shuddered, fingers digging into the sleeve of his shirt.   
  
"I hate this!" Jane said abruptly, jumping up and stomping her feet. "This is ridiculous! They should just stop fighting! It's not good for anyone! It doesn't  _solve anything!_ "  
  
Steve couldn't have agreed more had he wanted to. Like most feuds, this was spiraling well out of control, though Thor had continually assured them time and again that it wouldn't. He hadn't any real grasp on the situation, despite having claimed otherwise. He could get through to Loki, he had said. He just needed time. Well, time was just one thing that, this far into the fight, they didn't have enough of.   
  
Thor was far too trusting, too naive, too willing to believe in a man who had let him down time and again. During the war, his nation hadn't given their opposition chance after chance. It had been only the one, and once the trust, the peace, had been shattered, they had mobilized in an effort to prevent an even greater loss of life. Thor may have been a god, born into a people who had waged and ended wars since the dawn of time, but he had allowed personal affections to afflict his judgment. And now, all of them were paying for it.   
  
"It isn't that simple," Steve told her. "It's more than just a brother's quarrel. It's not about just saying 'sorry,' and being friends again..."  
  
Jane's expression seemed to fall even further. "But that..." She leaned back and began wringing her hands. "That's so unfair!"  
  
"But that's the  _point!_ " He hadn't meant to start shouting. "War isn't supposed to be fair! It's horrible; people die; families are pulled apart!" How many people had he served with? How many of them had actually walked out of that hellhole alive? How many of them had lived out the duration of their lives in pain, in misery, unable to close their eyes without watching their comrades perish all over again? And he, for some reason or another, had been the one chosen to survive. "It..." His voice cracked. "It's never  _fair..._ "  
  
Behind Jane, the glass promptly shattered inward, shards spilling across the floor and shooting towards them. He pushed Darcy out of the way and turned his back, wincing as some of the slivers jabbed at him. The tinkling sound was like a soft rain as Jane walked slowly over the mess, leaned forward and put one hand through the now gaping hole.   
  
Steve reached for her, certain that this was some manner of trick. But before his hand closed around her arm, he heard a voice whisper in his ear.   
  
 _"Run."_  
  
He rushed towards the gap, stepped through and kicked the excess glass at the bottom away with the heel of his shoe, ushering the two towards him and lifting them out and into the open expanse of the room. Where were they to go now, he wondered? The barrier that had kept them trapped like animals in a zoo had certainly been destroyed, but by who? And for what purpose?   
  
Those questions gave way to even more questions, his head only coming up for air when Darcy set to tugging him across the floor. Her voice was high, excited, as she pointed to the opposite wall where, out of nowhere, a sliding door had opened up. It had not been there before, Steve noted, and took each of them by the hand, leading them cautiously towards the bright white light though his body demanded he stay put. It was the voice in his head, so soothing, so familiar, that led him on, spurred him forward. As the three of them stood mere feet away from the welcoming glow, Steve sucked in a breath. If they died, he thought, at least the wouldn't have to worry about hanging on anymore.   
  
Stepping forward, he recognized the whispers in his ear. He had wanted so badly to call her, let her know that he had survived the chaos. But, with where she was in her own life, and all the differences between them, he hadn't dared run the risk of barging in, interfering in things that were none of his affair. For all he knew, she'd been married, had children, grandchildren. And what right, Steve thought, did he have to walk through the door and throw that all off balance?  
  
 _"It's okay,"_  he heard her say.  _"You'll be fine."_  
  
His eyes were clamped shut, seared by the brightness of the light as he walked on air, felt Darcy and Jane's fingers slip away. Leaning back, Steve reached for them, moved as though he were swimming, seeking them in the murky blackness of the great, wide ocean.   
  
He fell back, felt his head smack solid ground, heard a voice that he had not in what must have been several days, at least. Cracking open his eyes, Steve saw a golden halo set about a blurred face, a pair of gleaming blue orbs peering back down at him. As his vision cleared, strong hands pulled him up, dragged him across the floor and onto something soft and solid.   
  
"Are you all right?" Thor asked. He looked frantic, glancing back and forth between Steve, who now found himself settled upon the couch of Tony's penthouse, and the girls, who lay still and silent upon the black tile. "What happened?"  
  
Steve shrugged slowly, pressed a hand to his forehead and grimaced as the headache crept in. He motioned to the girls, insistent that Thor tend to them first so that he could get his thoughts straight.   
  
What had that light been, and why had it brought them here? They had been on a spacecraft, hadn't they? Suspended several miles above the surface of the Earth, trapped and held as hostages or prisoners. So, why?   
  
"There was... The glass broke," he murmured as Thor lifted Jane and Darcy into chairs. "It just..." Steve separated his hands, miming an explosion. "Burst inward, and... and then the door, and the... light... I-I don't know why. Or how."  
  
The god straightened up, the worry wiped from his face as he turned with a stony gaze. "What light?!" Thor's voice soared, his figure looming over the Captain within a matter of seconds. "Where did it come from?!"  
  
"I-I don't know! The glass just broke and... and it was there when the door opened! Why...?"  
  
Surprisingly, Thor backed down and sat himself upon the glass coffee table, rubbed his chin and broke out into a beaming grin.   
  
"I see. So that is what he's up to."  
  
Steve felt his stomach sink, his eyes widening slightly as he tilted his head towards the god. Perhaps he hadn't heard him properly.   
  
"'He?'" the soldier parroted.   
  
"Is it now that you understand?" Thor said, idling towards the window. "Brother?"


	32. To The God I Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Breakdown" by Daughtry.

She hated him. Absolutely hated him. Everything about him was monstrous, so much so that Natasha could not bring herself to think of him as a man, let alone a god. Men, she had learned, had great potential to become devils and beasts. What with all the many temptations present in the world, money, sex, power, one could never take a look at any single person and make the call as to whether or not they would succumb in the end. But as for Loki, she had pegged him as bad news the first time she'd seen his damn face on a screen. The arrogance that flitted about in his eyes, the way he carried himself, even the not-so-subtle way he'd break into a smile had made her feel ill.   
  
As much as it pained her to admit, Clint had been right. Out of some misguided sense of pity, the stupid idea that he could be changed, given a bit of genuine peace by way of friendship, she'd gone well out of her way to prove it. Not only to him and the rest of the team, but to herself as well. And all that time, Natasha noted, had been utterly wasted.   
  
Men could become monsters, but monsters could not become men.   
  
The assassin would do more than just kill him were he to return, she thought. Everything he had done, all the chaos and misery and woe he had brought upon millions of innocent people would be crammed down his throat. She would  _make_  him swallow it,  _make_  him realize that there  _were_  consequences for his actions. Namely murder and betrayal.   
  
Betrayed. No, it was far more than that, though her weary and bitter mind couldn't possibly decide what else there was to add. To put it as simply as she could, Natasha not only wanted to browbeat the bastard, but strangle him, kill him as she had so many other demons in her line of work. Perhaps, what with so little to do and so few villainous throats to slit, she had lost her touch. Become soft. That thought irked her, and she wheeled around as she kept walking, slamming the side of her head into the glass.   
  
The chamber rattled with the sound, startling the others as she cursed under her breath. Though she could not see him, Natasha knew that Clint had shifted in her direction, had likely raised his head or even a hand to help her. But she did not want his help, let alone need it. Truth be told, the assassin wanted nothing to do with him, even on the job. He behaved as a child would, throwing fits and giving her the silent treatment when things didn't go his way. That was precisely why she had ended it. She didn't need to be engrossed in a relationship where she was stuck raising her partner.   
  
Loudly, Tony groaned, whining that there was no privacy with which to relax and take a shit. Natasha rolled her eyes at the comment. How Pepper had the patience to deal with a brat like him was astounding. Why, for crying out loud, their  _son_  was better behaved than his father, and he wasn't even a year old! Talk about sad, she thought.   
  
"Goddammit, Tony!" she finally hissed, sorely tempted to kick off her boot and fling it at him. "Yes, we know you're miserable! But, for your convenience, here's an update: We're  _all_  uncomfortable! Now, stow it!"  
  
He said nothing. Made no smart remarks or even looked at her. The man only tilted his head back against the glass and let out a slow breath. Like the rest of them, he had to be wondering how the hell they were going to get out of this one.   
  
She breathed slowly, trying to calm herself down, trying to psych herself out. She was somewhere else, home maybe. Not here, not someplace that wasn't familiar, not someplace that would end up causing the lot of them harm. It didn't last long, for Clint and Tony promptly began banging on the glass, shouting and causing their voices to echo off the walls. Natasha turned, eyes wide and jaw slack, legs threatening to fall out from beneath her.   
  
For on the outside, looking in, stood Pepper flanked by the very god she hated.   
  
Natasha watched Tony go next, phased straight through the barrier and sent spinning as he struggled to stay on his feet. She sneered, lurched forward and grabbed Clint by the arm as he was steadily pulled through.   
  
"What the hell are you doing?!"   
  
"You do know that I could leave him here," Loki said, deadpan as the archer hovered halfway between the barrier. "Though I imagine it wouldn't be particularly... comfortable."  
  
Clint's eyes widened visibly as he peered at her, almost begging that she not screw this up for him, too. Funny, she thought, considering how much bitching the hawk had done about this smarmy bastard. She had half a mind to take the god up on his request, but when she weighed one of them against the other, Natasha found that, even when pissed at him, she'd take Clint over Loki.   
  
Slowly, she let go, felt the length of his arm, his sleeve, slide through her hand; felt his fingers slip through hers a he moved through the glass as though it were liquid. The assassin found herself scowling as Tony laid his hands on Pepper's shoulders, their baby safe and warm in her arms as she smiled. She stared at Loki. Had  _he_  brought Bradley here to be with his mother? How strange.   
  
He paced, seemingly hesitant as Natasha laid one hand flat against the glass, waiting for him to slip his inside and yank her out as well.   
  
"What the hell are you waiting for?"  
  
"I have to wonder," he said, pacing, "if this is really such a good idea. Freeing you."  
  
Stupid bastard. This wasn't the time to be playing games, and he knew it. The longer they screwed around, the more likely it was that they'd be caught. And Natasha knew just as well as the rest of them that Loki, what with having been supposedly "redeemed" in the eyes of their common enemy, was not supposed to be here. He had, after all, played Judas and gotten them all into this.   
  
"Leaving me here is an even worse idea," she scowled. "I just might let slip that you were here."  
  
Loki frowned, opened his mouth and promptly closed it. A first. Natasha had never seen him without some manner of biting retort. Let alone with nothing to say. And wisely keeping his mouth shut didn't count.   
  
"Who would you tell? The Chitauri?" A sneer. "They wouldn't waste time on a mortal. Or perhaps you'd tell your beloved hero."  
  
She thought, rather bitterly, that he was referring to Clint. But that couldn't be. He'd been in the same mess as the rest of them, and had been just as powerless. So, as far as Natasha could see, he was talking about...  
  
Her head spun with the room, the fluid motion of being yanked sharply through a thick wall of glass startling. She stumbled, fell past Clint's shoulder before finding the wall and leaning against it. With narrowed eyes she glared, wanting so badly to let off some steam and just let this smug bastard have it. Gunfire wouldn't do anything to him, but it would sure as hell make her feel better.   
  
"Thor hasn't been here," she snapped. "You know that. Besides..." A laugh. "Thor is an  _idiot._ "  
  
If one could ever experience the sensation of falling up, this would have been it. A lack of breath in the lungs, that distinct sinking feeling that pooled in one's stomach upon reaching the first drop of a roller coaster. A bit dizzy, maybe even the lethargic feeling some people had while in hospitals. All of it was there, in her head, her bones, her muscles as she struggled against the arm held fast against her throat, pinning her to the wall. She could see them in blurred shapes, the others, trying to pry him away from her, all their voices mixing together as the baby cried, and he snarled.   
  
"I dare you to say that again!"   
  
Natasha sputtered, raised her feet and booted him in the chest. That damn armor, she thought amid the haze of her mind.   
  
He'd never been angry at someone for badmouthing Thor. In fact, every time someone like Tony had made jabs about him, the God of Mischief had all but laughed out loud. Thor was an idiot. He'd said it often enough himself. So it was surreal to her, to all of them, to so much as think that that behavior would ever change; that he'd go off the Richter over so simple a statement as the one she had made.  
  
"You... You have no right," Loki breathed, the soles of her boots finally touching down as he let her go.  
  
"And you do?!"  
  
She was given but a passing glance, before he looked away again, a doorway abruptly appearing in one of the walls.   
  
Natasha could only snort. What a bloody hypocrite he was.


	33. Little Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Savin' Me" by Nickelback.

They needed to shut up, leave him alone, stop asking dozens of questions in dizzying unison. His head was spinning, making him feel sick, and not a one of them could see it. Now they were arguing, turning their attention from him to one another, all wondering aloud how any of this was going to be solved and cleaned up. Everybody wanted answers, everybody wanted peace. But, of course, those were two things that continued to elude even Loki himself. How bizarre that he would be the one to answer their questions, but have no one to answer his own.   
  
There was not to be a room in this lofty space for him to hide without hearing them, the volume of their voices consistently rising with the passing of mere seconds. If there were any chance that the trick would work, he'd gladly break into Tony Stark's vast collection of exotic liquors. But considering that he couldn't drown himself in alcohol without the passing of hours and many glasses, it wasn't going to be worth it. And alcohol was, apparently, a depressant. As if the God of Mischief needed to feel any lower than this.   
  
His hands were firmly clapped over his ears, the slightly loosened pieces of his armor rattling as he shook. Or maybe those were Thor's footsteps as he approached, weighed down by the heftiness of the hammer. The thunderer spoke with his eyes, though Loki swiftly avoided them. He didn't want to speak, not with words or with looks, let alone with the obvious tension in his form, though that could not be avoided. Why, he imagined that the very next set of eyes he peered into might turn his insides to stone.   
  
 _Stop! Get away!_  
  
Thor knew better than this; knew better than to lean in and rest the side of his head on Loki's arm. He should have known that everything was worse with his presence, that he was the whole reason that this had happened in the first place. Thor should have killed him when he had the chance, Loki thought. Should have had him moved from that dingy little cell to the crystal prisons where his deviousness and magic could only be utilized within passing daydreams. He was just too kind; too caring, and Loki wasn't sure anymore if that was such a terrible thing. Not his forte, to be sure, but perhaps the Allfather could learn a thing or two about patience from his son.   
  
 _Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking!_  
  
The babbling had become intolerable, a slight pressure starting to form at the base of his skull. It wasn't just Thanos anymore. It was everything, everyone, that kept pushing him closer and closer to the edge, until it became his own thoughts that urged him to take that final step.   
  
Why? Why wouldn't they stop?  
  
 _"Enough!"_  
  
He couldn't hear a thing then. Just the sudden flood of a cool, muted relief as it washed over him, the air finally feeling comfortable and safe to breathe. Ten seconds ticked by, then twenty, thirty, and he opened his eyes, heard the gentle tinkling of glass and thought that the chaos outdoors had finally made its way in. But there was no such thing.   
  
The windows were perfectly intact, albeit a bit damp from the steady rain that had begun to try and douse the city's flames. The glass coffee table, on the other hand, had had its polished top stripped away from the metallic base; the pieces lying in fragile little shards that had gone and skipped away across the wide, dark floor. They all watched him with dark eyes, perhaps wondering whether or not the time had come for them to physically intervene. One way or another, Loki couldn't find it in himself to care.   
  
"This is..."  
  
"Insane?" The Captain's eyes were hard. Were bets to have been placed on who would offer him sympathy first, he would have put his money on the soldier. Wrong choice. "You think so? Funny. We've been trying to drill that bit through your damn head since the first day you came here. Before, even." He nodded to Thor. "He tried, didn't he? Tried to get you to put aside your selfish pride and reconcile. But you  _wouldn't._  You wanted to prove that you had a little self-worth. Try to step on things that looked a lot smaller than you." The Captain scoffed, wore a grim smile and shook his head. "You know, it's because of men like you that I watched my friends die. Not again."  
  
Fantastic. Now he was being compared to a mortal who'd put a bullet in his head. Not a comforting thought in the slightest.   
  
Loki frowned, certainly looking the part of the recalcitrant brat.   
  
"I don't understand... You people are... You're  _weak,_  pathetic, empty. You have epitomized insanity from the  _beginning._  You expect that emotion, desire, will give you anything. You kill for material things; things that don't belong to you; for money, for property, for men and women. And again," he breathed, "you have found a way to drag me down. You. A rag-tag group of misfits." Loki snickered. "It shouldn't be this way. I am a  _god._ "  
  
"Do not start that again, Brother," Thor chided.  
  
"Shut  _up_ , you idiot!"  
  
Loki wheeled around on his heel, arm outstretched, and struck Thor full in the mouth. As the other tumbled to the floor, the trickster could feel the harsh bite of blood on the back of his hand. It was startling. For as long as he could remember, he'd never been able to hit Thor hard enough to draw blood. Unless he was out of his head and unable to recall such a time.   
  
"Stop trying to save me! Stop trying to turn me into something I'm not! Stop trying to be a bloody hero!"  
  
He couldn't see any of them, and hadn't spotted the swift flair of movement that shot through the shadows that hung across the room. There came a distinct lack of breath, a spark of light through the darkness behind his eyelids, and an abrupt ache as Loki felt his head being slammed against the floor. Peering up, he wheezed, the assassin's gaze hard and fierce, the sole of her boot halting the flow of air into his lungs.   
  
The damned wench had gone and kicked him in the throat.  
  
"You're pathetic!" she spat, and set to shaking him. "You screw us over and  _then_  decide that you have a conscience?! And what was it you said in that damned prison when  _I_  called him an idiot?! Didn't you threaten me, dare me to say that about him again?!" She scoffed. "He's not the idiot here. He's not the one trying to figure out what sits right, and what doesn't. Thor knows. He wants you to stop being stupid, just be happy, and go home! But what would you know about that? You're a  _monster._  The only thing you're capable of is hate."  
  
Natasha stepped off, turned briskly on her heel and marched away to the bar, refusing to look at a one of the stunned figures that followed her with their eyes. Loki hacked, pushed himself up and spat on the floor, a filthy habit, not resisting as Thor took him by the arm and pulled him up again.   
  
It wasn't hard. He knew he'd screwed up, and more than once. Despite all his cunning, Loki had shown that he was lousy at carrying out these massive, dominating schemes of his. At least, not without falling prey to a singular moment of regret. That was his problem. Once he was where he needed to be, he found himself questioning everything, running through every step, every breath, of the trap. And once Thor made his appearance, be it alone or flanked by companions, Loki went overboard. He  _had_  to prove himself to Odin;  _had_  to guarantee his mother's unyielding affection;  _had_  to ensure that every being knew that he was capable, that he was better than Thor. Even worse was that these elaborate ploys were fabricated so that he could prove it to himself.   
  
The group shifted away, out onto the balcony that looked over the crumbling city, leaving him alone with Thor.   
  
His head turned then, the ache in his neck beginning to thrum consistently as though he'd slept on it the wrong way. He stared at Thor, feeling a blank look as it built upon his face.   
  
There was one thing he'd never been able to understand. How were the two of them so different? Thor had been like him once, though not as clever. He'd been violent, headstrong, reckless, having charged into realms looking for sport and seeking blood. And when they'd been caught, dragged home with blood matting their hair and decorating skin, Odin had all but dismissed Thor for his foolishness, save on the rare occasion that his antics posed a serious threat to the peace. But, of course, once Loki had given up on trying to prove himself with good manners and a bowed head, he had been wrong.   
  
Thor, he remembered, had behaved as he had pleased and suffered little to no consequence. But when he had acted out, or even held his silver tongue in the presence of Asgard's king, Loki had been lectured for not behaving as a price should.   
  
It was ironic, hypocritical, that he be made the villain of the peace, regardless of the role he truly played upon the stage. Perhaps that was what the fates had intended all along. That he, the black sheep among the denizens of Odin's palace, remain as such. Perhaps he had always been fated to fail, fated to lose. And, if that were the case, was that all there was to being who he was; to being Loki? It made him wonder all the more. If he could not turn to the Aesir, to their king, to Thor, then to whom was the God of Mischief to appeal to for mercy, for aid?   
  
"Am I... an idiot?"  
  
There was a slow breath, that of hesitation. "Yes."  
  
That was the Thor he'd come to know, to hate. Not an ounce of malice in him, despite being brutally honest.   
  
"Well, what now, then?" Funny that he had the mind and Thor the brawn, but Loki couldn't come up with a thing. He was empty. Blank. "I suppose we sit here and wait."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"The end. What else?"  
  
What could he do against Thanos? Were he to restate his allegiance, a word which made a knot in his stomach, there would be no question that he would suffer again. Were he not hunted down again, then Loki would simply be taken and killed, if not worse.   
  
Perhaps it would be best to just lie down and forget about all this; let Thor and his silly friends worry and try to stop a being that even Loki himself could not. Just close his eyes and let Midgard burn.  
  
"We could do it," Thor murmured. He looked unconvinced. "Together. You are brilliant, you know. And I would do anything, if you would only ask."  
  
"Can we? A lost sheep, the head of the herd, and a few scrawny rats? Does that not like suicide to you?"  
  
Thor's hand was warm as his fingers curled around Loki's forearm. He was pulled forward until their noses almost touched, the thunderer's golden brow drawn into a firm expression.   
  
"We can," he said. "Not sheep, and not rats, either. The two of us. Brothers. And friends."  
  
It sounded stupid, crazy, and Loki knew it, but he couldn't help smiling.  
  
For the first time in decades, Loki found it in himself to finally believe him.


	34. Memento

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "False King" by Two Steps From Hell.

She tried to appear passive, despite everything that insisted that the mounting steam within be released. It wasn't good for her, keeping these things bottled up, and the assassin knew it. But, when weighing the pros and cons of standing on the balcony's edge and screaming, the only good she would be doing was scaring the tar out of her friends, which could quickly escalate into another full-blown argument that would only serve to set them back several paces, if not days.   
  
So, biting her tongue, Natasha slipped a hand into the pocket of her now rain-soaked jacket and withdrew the somewhat crinkled package of cigarettes. Fortunately, she had neglected to remove the plastic wrapping beforehand.   
  
With the smoke pressed between her lips, she raised a hand to shield it from the rain until it was set alight, quickly tucking the lighter back into her jeans and leaning forward on the slick balcony railing.   
  
How easily could she have joined the rest of them, all hiding beneath the metal awning that had jutted out from the side of the building at Tony's request, quickly shielding the patio chairs and table from any more moisture. But given the circumstances, given how utterly betrayed and angry she felt, avoiding all contact was certainly Natasha's best option. It was better this way, she thought, recalling the number of times she'd been dispatched on her own, the days wherein she hadn't sworn her allegiance to any organization or people, free to do as she wanted and all in the company of her own thoughts.   
  
Perhaps, after this, they should all take a good, long break from one another again. Go their separate ways and not bother to stay in touch with one another. It was easier, she thought, than trying to be close friends; than trying to prove to themselves, and to each other, that they cared. They'd lasted this long as a whole, hadn't they? Covered one another's asses and worked through troubles that even the governments of the world couldn't have. There was nothing wrong with taking an extended vacation, with doing all that they could to escape the horrendous memories of the things they'd seen and done.   
  
"You smoke?"  
  
The sound of his voice startled her, the cigarette falling from her now open mouth and down with the rain until she couldn't see it anymore. Natasha huffed, pulled another one from her pocket and lit it up, being careful to keep both the smokes and the lighter well out of the archer's reach. His tone said that he didn't approve.  
  
She sighed, blew a ring of smoke at him that was quickly swept away by the cool wind.   
  
"I am not having this conversation, Clint."  
  
He always wanted to talk about their problems, even when it was best to leave them alone. She needed space, as Natasha had told him time and again, to get her head together, understand just what had and was happening and what she wanted and needed to say. This situation was no exception.   
  
"You think we're going to get through this?" He leaned over the stretch of railing beside her, peering out into the distant damage of the city. "Is it going to be as easy as the last time?"  
  
That almost made her laugh. Combating Frost Giants and evil gods hadn't been easy in the slightest. But, when their present situation was compared to the things of the past, it certainly made everything else appear like a breath of fresh air. Particularly now that New York was falling apart before their very eyes, and on a scale unlike anything they'd ever seen.   
  
It looked like a ghost town, pieces of skyscrapers tumbling to the ground amid the pouring rain, smoke rising as the last sparks of flame attempted to keep themselves alight. Below, the streets must have been in a far worse state, probably littered with decrepit vehicles and the broken, bleeding bodies of citizens. Parking garages, she imagined, must have collapsed almost instantly with the magnitude of the onslaught, trapping and killing thousands in only seconds.   
  
That made her angry, and Natasha had half a mind to turn right around and march back inside to beat that bastard senseless. But it would do nothing. If anything, she'd only cause more trouble, imagining that he'd promptly refuse to lend them any kind of aid. Particularly if Thor had made any headway when it came to convincing him.  
  
"Doesn't matter either way," she finally said. "If we win, he lives, and we have to rebuild. If we lose, he lives, and the planet dies." The assassin shrugged, willing herself not to turn and stare through the glass of the door. "Either way, he gets off scot-free."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
With his gaze set firmly upon the wall, Thor's hand moved slowly, almost mechanically, through the black ends of Loki's hair. He didn't know what else to do, and there was nothing left to say now that his brother had drifted off to sleep on the space of couch beside him. Perhaps it was instinct; a means for him to mirror the comforting gesture that their mother had always engaged in before the dream world had taken the both of them away. That must have been why he appeared to be so at ease, not squirming fitfully in his sleep or begging to be let go.   
  
Loki was still, silent.   
  
He moved then, startled Thor out of his reverie, and lay flat on his back, head falling against the thunder god's leg. Thor's hand rested on his shoulder, eyes moving to stare out the window at his friends.   
  
They appeared ill at ease, a frown decorating nearly every brow, save those of Pepper and Jane, who looked longingly at the quiet baby boy who lay in his mother's arms. Perhaps having sensed his gaze, Jane turned to peer over her shoulder, their eyes meeting in silence. She needed no words to convey her unease, to explain to him that which they both already knew: This should never have happened.   
  
Thor nodded, her voice having spoken within his head. There were a great many things in the expanse of the universe that, in the opinion of many, should never have happened. But that which had happened was now fact, and that which should have occurred instead was merely passing fiction.  
  
The thunder god should have done a great many things to prevent the spread of the disease known as hatred, but that which he had not seen could not be corrected now. What could be done was to present compassion even in the heart of the greatest storm, provide a soft word where others would have provided a blade, show patience where any other man would have presented his temper. Anger would correct nothing, would not serve to destroy that which had the potential to be carried on. And though it was likely that he stood alone in this endeavor, in the desire to end this chaos and spare his brother of his suffering, still he would carry it on.   
  
His eyes darted back down then, following another bit of movement from Loki as his hand hit Thor's knee. Blue eyes widened, fixated on the nearly unseen white line on his brother's open palm. He should have seen it before; recognized the signs of Loki's growing insecurities all those years ago. He bore the same mark on the same hand, granted on the same day. It had been weeks after their first real hunt for bilgesnipe, after things had gone terribly awry. Loki had been wondering that afternoon just how, and why, they were different.   
  
 _What separates you from me?_  
  
That was the question Loki had asked with his eyes, leering at the steady drips of blood that had slipped into the grass, and the God of Thunder had had no answer for him.   
  
He still didn't.   
  
It should have been washed away by now, the virtually unseen little mark, what with Loki's talent for spellcasting. Healing or just hiding something so small as this should have been so simple as batting an eye, but he had chosen to let it remain.   
  
"Why?"


	35. Convergence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Into The Blue" by Bush.

"You're awake."  
  
One way or another, he couldn't stay asleep for very long. If Thanos wasn't threatening him in his dreams, then it was worry that ate at him; the possibility that the Titan might decide to off him just because he could. Well, that and the assassin. She absolutely hated him. He could see it in her eyes, almost smell it like the stench of death. It shouldn't have bothered him, but id did.   
  
Loki frowned. He wasn't supposed to have a damned conscience.   
  
"Must you always state the obvious?" He rubbed his forehead, scooted away from Thor. It was ridiculous how warm the other always was. Perhaps Odin had lied about him, too, and decided that a Fire Giant would make for an interesting challenge. Doubtful. "Shouldn't you be with them?"  
  
They had to be outside, lest the room would have resembled a musty bar full of drunkards on a weekend night.   
  
"Must you always push me away?"  
  
That was the Thor he remembered. The idiot who, rash as he was in battle and in the presence of the king, couldn't help prying when they were alone. The fool who had somehow learned how to read him like one's first book on spells or swordsmanship.   
  
"We are not so different," Thor said, "you and I. We both want the same thing."  
  
What a load of crap that was.   
  
"And just how would you know what I want?" Loki sneered. "You don't even know when you have fish in your damn trousers."  
  
Thor smiled. "You remember that, do you?"  
  
Loki couldn't think of a soul residing within the palace walls who  _didn't_  remember the day Thor had waddled down the hallways, leaving wet footprints on the floor as the tail of a trout stuck out the back of his pants. He had neglected to say anything, having wondered just how many would walk past the eldest Son of Odin and turn away to hide their laughter. Of course, a young Volstagg had been the first to say something, and had pulled the thing out in the presence of the queen, then asking if he would be inappropriate to put the fish on a spit and have it for dinner, much to Thor's immediate embarrassment.   
  
"What do you want, Thor?" Loki sighed. "And don't lie and say that you're interested in making small talk."  
  
He hadn't a chance to blink before the thunderer reached over him, grabbed his left arm, and pulled.   
  
"Why did you keep it?" He wasn't pleading this time, but demanding. Like a dog with a bone, Thor would not let the subject go until he had received a satisfactory answer. "You could have done without it, you know. Taken care of yourself and left me to forever ponder the mystery." Loki stiffened, Thor's matching palm laid flat against his. "It is because, in your mind, we are equal in this respect. Is that it?"  
  
"You're trying to guilt me," Loki said, and made a face. "Too bad. Not only are you lousy with words, but a wretched manipulator."   
  
Thor said nothing, his eyes narrowed in a frown.   
  
"Either drop it," Loki growled, "and ask what you intend to, or sit here on your own and expect to watch this planet die."  
  
The God of Thunder waited a moment, seemed to hold his breath as he weighed his options before finally letting go, flopping back against the couch with a sound of discontent.   
  
"You will help us."   
  
It was not a question, but a demand, and Loki couldn't stand it.  
  
"And just how have you assured yourself of that, Thor?" The god snickered, stood and set to pacing about the room. "Will you threaten me as Odin would? Find means with which to force me?"  
  
"You cannot stand to be outdone," Thor replied. "It is in your nature to ensure that your cunning is unrivaled, that this is a matter of pride. And I know that once you relinquished the Tesseract, all you did was buy yourself time. Not freedom, not security. He will use it against you once he is through with us, and you will have tarnished your own chance at a satisfying victory."  
  
As much as it irked him, that was probably the most intelligent thing that had ever spilled forth out of Thor's mouth. Pride. For that reason alone had he gone against Odin, threatened to wage war upon Asgard, sworn that he would never again be matched or outclassed by Thor. But that fact, the thing that had identified him for so long, had been far too easily lost amid the lingering possibility that he might soon cease to exist except in mortal legend.   
  
Loki snarled, felt his muscles tighten. It wasn't very often that this happened, if at all, but he absolutely detested the moments in which Thor was right.   
  
The smile was evident in his tone as Thor spoke.  
  
"Admit it, Brother. You are too consumed with that image of yourself to deny this now."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
Observation was getting them nowhere. The time had long since passed for them to take the initiative, to act, but it had become clear that the wool had been pulled over all their eyes far too early in the game. It had blinded them, caused them to believe that the issue that had been at hand had been the one to focus on rather than the blatantly obvious presence of an outsider in their midst. But not a one of them had paid heed to the warnings that had echoed in their heads, believing, hoping, that the thunder god had been right about one thing.   
  
 _"He is not so bad as all that."_  
  
Sadly, that had turned out to be little more than a brother's fond fantasy, though Tony had decided to keep his mouth shut on the matter. He liked doing as he pleased, enjoyed watching how people reacted once he finally irked them, but the situation demanded that he just keep his thoughts to himself and work on a way to get all of this hell to go away.   
  
But there were, of course, exceptions.  
  
"I'm sick of this," he groaned, and all eyes, save those belonging to the pair of master assassins, turned on him. "I can't just sit here on my ass and do nothing!"  
  
Tony flinched as Pepper leaned over to slap him on the shoulder, the baby writhing in her arms and crying.   
  
He leaned back into the chair, threw his feet up on the table and began to sulk, not bothering to respond to the Captain's snide remarks about what a child he was. Considering everything that was going on, and the fact that they were all but powerless to stop the violent onslaught that came from the sky above their heads, being childish was the only way he knew how to handle it without completely breaking down.   
  
There had been several times that Tony himself had been the target of malicious intent, and, each time, he had managed to get out of trouble by the skin of his teeth. Rogers, Bruce, even the murderous ex-couple had seen their fair share of hell and come out alive. He could certainly count on them to see just how he was trapped, how hard it was to come up with some new way to protect people that were dying. But what it all came down to was the ever-optimistic God of Thunder, and he was inside probably exchanging worthless words with his idiot brother.   
  
If there was one thing that Tony had learned since he had developed the suit, it was that a man couldn't truly trust anybody. Not even his friends. Stane had too easily taught him that lesson.   
  
But, of course, he kept on ignoring those words that should have hung on his wall, should have continued to manifest in the way he dealt with teamwork, in the way he dealt with the general public. Yet there was something about this strange group of theirs, a collection of outcast heroes and even monsters, that felt more trustworthy than all the smiling sycophants Tony had ever invited into his home. They seemed genuine, put the needs of the public before their own, even at the cost of great criticism. They were hated just as much as they were loved, and though Tony wasn't necessarily an expert on people, the fact that they all kept fighting sure as hell said something good about them.   
  
He stood up, slapped the table with a hand and waited until they were all watching him. From Rogers to Rhodey right down to the spider and the sparrow. Tony sucked in a breath, the air laden with the scent of rain and feeling cold in his lungs.   
  
"Sitting here isn't going to solve anything," he said, and stared out across the broken city. Devastated and dead. "But just jumping up and into action will only get us killed. So, the way I figure it... We vote. Do we take Sparky up on his word and trust the bastard, or do we go ahead and play this solo?"  
  
"Since when did you give up your throne, Stark?" Rogers quipped. "You're the last person I would have expected to be capable of suggesting democracy."  
  
"Oh, shut up, Steve." The Captain flinched, Natasha's lighter smacking him square in the back of the head. T woman had a nasty look in her eye. "You're just as guilty as he is. Hell, as any of us! Yeah, you've had a hard time with this, but so have we! We've all seen and done horrible things, so just shut your mouth and pay attention!"  
  
Tony was almost afraid to finish his proposal following that, but he kept a straight face and just decided to bear with it.   
  
"The thing I have a hard time with," he said, "is that no one promised this would be easy. Hell, I didn't want to be part of Fury's stupid little boy band from the start. But after watching all of this, realizing that I've become accustomed to a certain sense of security, that I'm getting used to all of you... I don't want to go out like this. If I'm gonna go down, then I'm gonna go down swinging. So, all in favor of giving this one last shot..." Tony raised a hand. "Well, you know how it goes."  
  
He diverted his eyes to Bradley, wondering if he'd remember this in five years. Would his boy wake in the middle of the night to shadows on his wall, to nightmares, or would he sleep soundly through the night, oblivious to the fact that any of this had ever happened? One this was for certain. If they didn't give this another shot, try one last time to make things right, he probably wouldn't live long enough to even learn how to walk or talk.   
  
As if on cue, Bradley squirmed, stretched his little arms towards Tony. He couldn't help smiling, albeit sadly as he pulled the baby against him, pressed his nose into the soft little tufts of hair atop his head, inhaling the infant's fresh scent. This could be the last time Tony ever held him, ever saw him smile. Because if they tried, and this didn't work, they could all end up dead. And with nothing to show for it.   
  
"It is, as you say, 'infamous.'"   
  
Tony looked up, the breath having left him as the others all stood at the table, each with a hand raised and a determined gleam in their eyes.   
  
He turned, saw that Thor stood in the door smiling, and smirked as Loki elbowed him.   
  
"'Unanimous,' you twit."  
  
Tony snorted.   
  
"Looks like we're all in," he said, and made a face of amusement as they all turned to stare at the trickster god. "Right?"


	36. Once More Into The Fray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Wake Up, Open The Door, And Escape To The Sea" by Blaqk Audio.

Suicide. That's what this was, and he didn't like it one bit. It was worse, by far, than being subject to the torment of Odin's punishments, than being forced to live out the remainder of his days on Midgard. Straight back into the dark again was the plan, back to staring at leering eyes and ugly faces. And if this all went straight to hell, it would be Thor's fault, and the thunder god would know it.   
  
"I don't like it," he said, and as they began arguing again, refused to utter another word on the matter.   
  
He had already gone against Thanos twice: Having failed to collect the Tesseract at the conclusion of the first invasion, and again with his ill-conceived method of insurance. Now, and this was dead certain, the Titan wouldn't have any qualms as to annihilating him were he to screw up again. Which meant that, whatever this new plan turned out to be, it had to be nothing less than perfect.   
  
"Fruit basket," Tony piped up, that stupid smirk on his face. By Odin's throne, Loki was going to slap him if the wisecracks didn't stop. "We can send the guy a fruit basket. What do you think he likes? Pineapple?"  
  
Thor had already reacted, his hand on Loki's shoulder, forcing him to remain seated. It didn't matter. He still had throwing knives and a silver tongue.   
  
"Perhaps I should shove it down your throat?"  
  
Tony's face went paper white, his eyes moving slowly across the expanse of the room as if to gauge the reactions of the others. When they, too, stood stone still and stared, the man swallowed, lifting both hands to the visible expanse of his throat. He must have realized how uncomfortable, and possible, it would be to actually have something, let alone anything the size of a pineapple, shoved down his esophagus.   
  
He mimed zipping his lips then, and sat down on a bar stool, slouching and attempting to draw his head down through the neck of his shirt.   
  
Loki smirked.   
  
"Then what, dare I ask, is your brilliant idea?"  
  
Natasha was scowling at him something fierce, almost gnawing on the inside of her cheek as she waited impatiently for him to respond. But, rather than acknowledging her with any sign of interest or wasting his breath, Loki yawned and rested his arms on his knees, eyes shut as he leaned forward in his seat.   
  
Thor, like a doting mother, took to patting him gently on the head.   
  
There came the sharp sound of her heels against the floor, moving closer and then further away as she paced back and forth. In his mind's eye, he could see her, perhaps engulfed in flame the same shade as her fiery hair, that fair face of hers twisted into an otherworldly grimace as she sought after a way to get his goat, force him to acknowledge the fact that she was furious with him.   
  
He didn't want to say anything, particularly not here, about how she shouldn't be angry, how she was only wasting her time, her breath, by cursing at him. It would look and sound more than just strange coming from him; make it appear as though he had found the heart to give a damn about...  
  
No. There was no room for anything so foolish as that. He couldn't be stupid like Thor.   
  
Flinching, Loki ushered that thought away, the only sound in his ears that of the tinkling of glass as it began to rain down upon him, the empty bottle having been smashed against the wall. He lurched forward, out of Thor's grasp, and tumbled right over the polished tabletop, landing flat on his back and out of breath. Clearly, that had been the woman's aim, as another bottle, this time full, came flying across the room, breaking only inches from his face.   
  
"He's a  _monster_! You can't expect that we'll just trust him again, Thor!" she shouted, and Loki felt the impact of a third object, a wine glass, against the side of his head as he sat up.   
  
How accurate.  
  
With all the yelling, Thor promptly lunged off the couch and began issuing threats as Jane attempted to talk him down. They were all attempting to shout over one another now, and he watched in stunned silence as Pepper, now bouncing the baby in her arms, shook her head and hurried off towards the nursery so as to calm him down.   
  
That, Loki thought, wouldn't be such a terrible idea. To separate himself from the rest of this insane herd before he had chance to bite the spider back. And with a vengeance. He moved along the outside of the room as best he could, careful to avoid the eyes of anyone who might have looked back to watch as he slipped down the hall with a scowl.  
  
Suicide. This whole damn thing was suicide.   
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
"Stop! Just–!"  
  
Groaning, she threw her hands up, moving into the kitchen with the idea of finding a bucket and soaking the lot of them with water. Like dogs. Stupid dogs that couldn't help but to fight over the last bit of meat on a dry, old bone. It infuriated her to no end, and watching even Darcy engage herself in the affairs of the Avengers, particularly like this, didn't do anything to alleviate Jane's ever rising temper.   
  
The woman shook her head, suddenly curious as to whether or not a headache was beginning to form within. Quickly, she reached into the cabinet, seizing a glass and bringing it down upon the counter top far harder than she needed to, chipping the bottom as it hit hard against the edge. The faucet burst to life as she held the glass beneath it, a heavy frown on her face as she stared at the monochromatic tile of the back splash, failing to take a drink until the glass had easily overflowed into the sink. Pulling it away, Jane quickly downed the contents, placing it back onto the counter with a strange sort of tenderness before venturing off down the hallway to see just where Pepper had gone.   
  
Maybe she needed help with the baby, who must have been petrified by all the shouting. Poor thing.  
  
One after another the doors were opened, each room looking more-or-less the same: Wide windows, a beautiful view, and open floor spaces with clean lines and colors that screamed "modern." The plush mattresses had blue-grey bedspreads thrown over crisp sheets, and each pillow looked as though it must have come straight from the heavens. It was after the fifth door that Jane finally gave up on looking through each of the guest rooms, opting instead to head right around the nearest corner for a try. It must have been Tony and Pepper's room, she thought as she peered inside, noting the photos of the couple and many of Bradley in various outfits. She took a step back, afraid to intrude any further when the sound of a running faucet came from the cracked bathroom door.  
  
It didn't seem like intruding, Jane thought, were Pepper in the room as well. She crossed the carpet quickly, pushing the door open with a moment's hesitation before stepping inside. From the dim light of the window she could see him, staring blankly into the mirror and messing erratically with his hair every few seconds. It was going to start coming out if he didn't stop yanking like that.  
  
"Oh, God," Jane breathed, raised a hand to touch the cut on his forehead, and Loki jumped. Hadn't he seen her reflection behind him? "Did she hit you?"  
  
She turned, not waiting for a response before searching the nearby linen closet for a washcloth. Whirling back around, Jane tossed it into the sink and turned on the faucet. She pushed him then until he sat on the edge of the wide tub, demanding with naught but a finger that he keep his butt glued to that spot and not move.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
"What your brother should be," she replied bitterly, and set to wringing out the hot cloth. "But instead, he's out there arguing with the rest of them, trying to prove Natasha wrong."  
  
Loki winced as she set one hand behind his head to steady him and took to wiping the blood away.   
  
"Once more into the fray," he chuckled. "That idiot."  
  
Jane frowned and stomped her foot. "That idiot has done nothing but save your dumb ass since the moment you got here!" She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. "So don't you  _dare_  talk about him like he's nothing!"  
  
Loki grimaced and tugged at his hair again.   
  
After several minutes of grumbling to himself, he finally piped up.  
  
"I was going to kill you."  
  
Jane nodded, picturing the cold, frosted temple of Jotunheim. Just a dream, now. "I know."  
  
"No. Before," he said, sounding out of breath. "Before I was any of this. Anything more to you than just a story. I was going to kill you, because I knew it would break him..."  
  
It was all she could think about, all she had been able to think about, but it was just so  _sad._  Brothers, if in name only, wasting away the years, their precious time, over an empty feud, a throne. How long, Jane wondered, had they been fighting? How long had it been since they'd been happy together? What could have impressed upon the one the need to destroy the other; to take down entire worlds for the sake of his own selfish ambitions?   
  
Without faces, the whole thing was empty and meant nothing to her. But when she threw the two of them into it, saw the God of Lies on one side of the picture, and Thor and their friends on the other, Jane wanted to sit down and just cry.   
  
It was horrible to know the people involved in such a tragedy.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Jane's eyes went wide. "About... what?"  
  
"Am I... Is she right?"  
  
"We all are," she said after some thought, and swallowed, "in some respect. The world is full of people who do monstrous things. But... that doesn't mean anything. Everyone has a chance at–"  
  
"Redemption," he finished, and leaned his head against her shoulder. "Rubbish. There's no such thing. We are... what we are. That's all..."


	37. Let's Not Pretend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "I Am Only One" by We Are The Fallen.

"I know you're not crazy about the idea," Tony murmured, and groaned quietly, an ice pack pressed against a steadily swelling jaw. "But... Dammit, Cap, it's all we've got."  
  
Steve nodded, drew breath in through his nose. Tony was right. He  _didn't_  like the idea at all. He didn't like knowing that, once again, he was expected to place his life in the hands of another, expect that he would be taken care of. That had gotten him into a lot of trouble more than once before, and it was high time that he started to take control of his own life and his own fate.   
  
But, were he to voice those concerns, he would be far too easily called out on it. It wasn't just about being in control of his own choices. He couldn't stomach the thought of trusting or working with a man, a god, who had put his own personal interests above those of the planet's inhabitants.   
  
In his line of work, in his life, deities had been beings to be trusted, depended upon in the most difficult and sorrowful times. They were not like men, having ascended to a state above that of carnal humanity, seeking to bestow peace and love and hope above all things. But this man, he thought, imagining all of the hell they had been forced to see and endure, was nothing like anything he had ever chosen to believe in. It seemed a perversion, to believe so heavily in something, hold out hope, and come to see that the gods, at least these ones, were merely people of another realm, solely dedicated to war.   
  
And it got him to wondering: Were the Asgardians all that there was in regards to gods? Or were they, too, a part of some greater purpose?  
  
The man shook his head. It hurt to think on those things, to try and explain one thing while another defied it almost entirely. Best to put them away for now, he decided. Tuck them deep into his pocket and dwell on them another day. Namely a day where time was not so crucial.   
  
"I know," Steve replied finally. "I just... I have a hard time believing Thor. He's no liar, but he's been wrong far too many times for me to put all my faith in him. In Loki." He swallowed, turned to look Tony in the eye. "Don't you think that Thor's being too... relaxed about all this? I know they're brothers, but that doesn't excuse what he's done. I've already seen people die, you know. Too many. I'm so tired, Stark. Tired of all the death..."  
  
Without a word, the billionaire sat down beside him, clapped him on the shoulder.   
  
"Dammit, Rogers," he huffed, "we all are. And I know that a lot of it is my fault. The death. I mean, I know you didn't see it all, weren't around when we shipped people off to Afghanistan, but... There's a lot that I should still be blamed for." A laugh. "But I guess people figure, 'Oh, well, he's the Iron Man now. He can't make those mistakes anymore. He can't do any wrong.'" And a sigh. "But they're just ignoring all the terrible things I did. All the people my weapons helped kill. I destroyed families, lives, and I made a fortune off it. Don't get me wrong. I don't really even like the guy. But I guess I'm kind of stuck in the same damn boat with him. I screwed up, and there's nothing I can do to take it back."  
  
"But you made the effort to change."  
  
Tony shrugged. "Yeah, well, I really sucked at it. Still do." He grunted, swiped at his eyes. "I mean, until about a week ago, I couldn't stand my own kid.  _My kid,_  Cap. Mine. The one thing I was always too selfish to give a damn about. And I only managed to swallow my pride because Bradley was so taken with that bastard. And because I... started to remind myself of my old man."   
  
Steve stared.  _"What?"_  
  
"I didn't want to be like him. So I just hiked up my damn skirt and decided to suck it up, roll with the punches. And I kind of figure that it's a universal thing, you know? To want to be a better person than your old man."  
  
Nodding, Steve smiled. "Yeah. I guess... You know, you're not such a pain after all, Stark. Kind of a nice guy." Tony made a face at that, as if to question why Steve hadn't thought he was a nice guy. "And, uh, sorry I... er..." He motioned with a fist, miming hitting himself in the face. "Sorry about the jaw."  
  


**# - # - # - #**

  
  
"That was one hell of a throw," he chuckled, leaning across the counter.  
  
The woman bristled, her hair nearly standing on end as she eyed him, a finger moving about the inside of the empty shot glass before pouring herself another helping. Something to keep her steady, he thought, and watched as Natasha downed the thing with a very visible frown knit into her forehead. She was still mad, and she wanted to make sure he knew it.   
  
Clint let out a heavy breath, knowing that the conversation he was trying to strike up was an unsolicited one. Even so, they couldn't keep on like this. They couldn't keep pretending that the other didn't exist.   
  
"We heard from Fury and Hill," he said casually, turning his back on her in hopes that the gesture would lighten her mood. "Headquarters is trashed, but they got out all right. Hill says they can't resort to operating out of the Helicarrier because of how quickly the invasion forces are descending. Might get them caught up in it. They've moved into the underground until things are back up and running. Better than nothing, I guess."  
  
"What do you want, Clint?"  
  
As much as he wanted to, the archer refused to turn around, instead staring at the wall and biting the inside of his lip.   
  
"For this to stop. I'm done pretending you don't exist, Nat. It just doesn't work."  
  
"Yeah? Well, maybe I need an extended vacation. You ever thought of that?"  
  
The hawk whirled around, moved hurriedly around the counter and yanked the half-empty bottle away from her, holding it well out of reach before finally dropping it onto the tile. Natasha's eyes grew wide and angry, one arm coming up to strike. He mimicked the movement, grabbing her wrist and pinning it to the top of the bar, holding the other behind her back as they stared at one another.   
  
"I'm done with all that," he said, struggling to keep his tone level. "I don't care what did, or didn't, happen. It's not important."  
  
"Why the sudden change of heart?" Natasha snapped. "Last week you were still ready to sling your accusations like arrows."  
  
They could die. That was all there was to it. Each day, there was a chance, even if it were small and virtually unseen. At any moment, one or both of their lives could end, leaving the other to potentially regret everything that had and had not been said. On the morrow, they would head back out, do everything they could to end this hellish onslaught, and the archer didn't want to go out there swinging if it meant having to stand by the side of a grave, or be buried in one, at the end of it all.   
  
Particularly if they had been snuffed out without ever speaking again.   
  
"I don't want to go out like this." His voice was rising, steadily but surely. "I don't want to wake up in a year and remember that you're gone. I don't want you to regret not saying something beforehand."  
  
"Since when do you care what happens?!" It was just the alcohol talking, and Clint knew it. "When did you start caring about how I feel?! Did you ever, Clint?! Did you ever really give a damn?! And how would I know?!"  
  
"You should know because I love you!"  
  
They both stopped, Natasha's eyes losing their fire and the archer relinquishing his grip. They could only stare at one another.   
  
He had never been quite so open about it before, telling her with subtle little things like offering his coat in the rain or just moving across the couch to keep her warm. But saying it, and so loud, was something else entirely. It was new, and it scared the hell out of him, true as it was.   
  
"Can we just stop?! I'm tired of trying to be mad at you, Nat. You know I suck at playing pretend, and–"  
  
She cut him off, pulled him in, her arms thrown over his shoulders, their mouths pressed together. She was tired too, her silence said. Tired of fighting, of being angry, of trying her hardest to hate. It was tearing the lot of them apart, turning them into little more than a collection of spoiled children in a perpetual daycare.   
  
Natasha sat back, the scent of alcohol still lingering on her breath as she allowed him to fold her into his arms.   
  
Burying her face in the crook of his arm, she curled in on herself as best she could, didn't seem to mind when he took to stroking her soft red locks of hair with a hand.   
  
"You should know... I really do hate him," she said, and the archer could have sworn her voice had cracked.   
  
Clint nodded. "Yeah. Me, too."


	38. Misguided Casualties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recommended tune for this chapter is "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons.

His eyes opened with a start, staring dazedly up at the trace patterns on the ceiling as Thor, too, lingered above his head , still rubbing the sleep from his own weary gaze. He let out a yawn that made his golden hair seem to stand on end like the grizzled mane of a beast on the savanna.   
  
Loki frowned, a hand moving to pull him upright, and slapped it away, muttering that Thor needn't bother. He was sick of being coddled by these people, weary of seeing their eyes spark questioningly the instant he felt himself caving in again. It was a repulsive routine that the lot of them had fallen into, and he would no longer have any part to play in it.   
  
Nightmares again, he thought, barely recalling that which had spun about within his head in the night, and went on to watch them come together again, laughing and passing about mugs and downing the fluid that so easily reminded him of a vile concoction of dirt and blood. The smell alone was enough to make him retch, and so the god snatched up one of the couch cushions and promptly buried his face in it. By Odin's throne, coffee was an absolutely hellish thing for one to wake up to in the morning.   
  
Loki darted for the balcony door the instant Thor turned around to face him again, clasping a ceramic cup in each hand. Again, he would have no part in this. He was no child, and he needed no aid.   
  
Or so he had tried to convince himself.  
  
It was all a farce he insisted, arguing vainly with the wit that insisted otherwise within his skull, somehow finding comfort in the sickly sweet scent of ash and not-so-distant rain. It should have been summer here, and the streets should have been packed to the breaking point with tourists, all heading through the streets in their bathing suits and towels as they made their way down to the pier, to the beach. The sun should have been hot and the air suffocating, the sound of the city's heat ringing incessantly in his ears like cicadas, driving him ever closer to the brink of absolute madness. But that was just a fantasy conjured up by the steadily growing pang in his gut. The stark reality was that they were all in hiding, if not dead, and it was startling to the god that he'd somehow found the heart to care.   
  
It wasn't supposed to have happened like this. He wasn't meant to feel like he'd done something wrong. Not when he'd spent so long believing himself to be right.  
  
"I like being here in summer," Thor said from behind, undoubtedly wearing that stupid smile of his. "In the park, lying in the grass, listening to the wind whistle through the leaves on the trees."  
  
Loki grimaced, fingers curling around the railing. "There are no trees, you idiot."  
  
"I know."  
  
He turned, arms folded across his chest, saw the steam rising steadily from the extra mug that Thor had left to sit on the patio table, and held his breath.   
  
Thor really should have stopped trying by now, should have grown tired of being hated and blamed for things that, when one took a step back and examined the situation objectively, really weren't his fault at all. Loki would have said to hell with him were their positions reversed, and he knew it. He would have given up long before this, let Thor do whatever the hell he wanted, and watched as the other eventually ended up self-destructing. Thor was quite possibly little more than persistent, obsessive in a completely different way. Or maybe he was just as stupid as Loki had always accused him of being. Or perhaps, on the off chance, he really gave a damn.  
  
Either way, this same old song-and-dance routine was growing rather tedious. But, as they both knew, something had to give, and, at this point, Loki wasn't sure just how much longer he'd hold out.   
  
Thor might actually outlast him, and Loki couldn't stand it.  
  
"You hate him."  
  
The statement was sudden, bringing him to stare at Thor as he paled, wide-eyed and completely blank. Contrary to what the god had always thought, he had nothing to say to that; could not find the nerve nor voice with which bring himself to shoot off his mouth and say that he'd never known anything but hatred for his once-called father.   
  
It was what anyone would have expected from him, and yet Loki found that he could not deliver.   
  
The words raised a great number of frightening questions in him, the sort that made a man feel as though he were falling, watching and fully absorbing every moment of his many years in under a minute before he hit the ground. For the life of him, he couldn't remember a day where he hadn't been angry with Odin; where he hadn't run to Frigga or waited for her to find him so she could try to wash away what must have been self-inflicted agony.   
  
That got him to wondering: Had he ever even loved the king? Had he ever  _really_  hated him?  
  
Was he falling? How strange that the ground seemed so near.   
  
"No..." The word felt like blood on his tongue, made him want to spit. "No, I... I just..."  
  
"You hate what he did."  
  
There was something dishearteningly calm in Thor's voice, in his face, and it brought his blood to a boil.   
  
 _"Shut up!"_    
  
There came a screech of metal as it bent behind him, his grip on the railing having tightened to the point that the length of steel curled in on itself as but paper.   
  
That strong hand of Thor's came at him then, fingers wrapping around his throat and throwing him to the ground before Loki had chance to strike. Head throbbing, he writhed in the thunderer's grasp, spouting threats and struggling to shove him away. The glass of the windows burst outward and shattered, drawing screams from those inside. The result of a vain attempt to startle the thunder god with furious magic. But Thor's gaze only intensified, nearly breaching the point of savagery as, having lost all patience, he promptly dropped his knee into Loki's gut.   
  
Breath fled his lungs and he choked, leaving the god drained and limp beneath Thor's now crushing weight. The other's grip vanished, his hands coming to frame either side of Loki's head. The God of Thunder sighed heavily, the storm in his eyes having vanished as quickly as it had come, and he leaned in, sat Loki upright and let the ruffled mess of black hair loll against his shoulder.   
  
"It's all right," Thor said, and shushed him though he made no sound. "Just one fight more, and you'll be home."  
  
But that was the thing. Even if this ended well, he had no hope of returning to Asgard.


End file.
